Sample video: Clock

Flash Tracks

Flash developers are often looking for ways to display video content in their flash presentations. The solution lies in a different kind of thinking - how to include flash in your video content.

Many people forget that quicktime supports dozens of graphics, sound and video formats. In version 4 Quicktime added support for flash tracks. Just as quicktime presentations can include multiple video, audio and text tracks they can also include flash content.

The combination of flash with formats such as sorenson video opens up a powerful range of options. But there are some issues to watch out for when working with the flash in quicktime. Let's take a look at some of these and then talk about the sample source file.

Remember Flash3?

Here's the big catch with flash in quicktime. Current versions (4.1) of the quicktime player only support the flash3 player. This means no mp3 audio, no advanced variables, no cgi support. The upcoming QuickTime5 (now in beta) adds support for Flash4, but for now we have to live in the flash3 world. Remember than you can see how your flash file will look in the quicktime player by export the files in flash3 format.

There are a few other limitations as well. The most significant one is the lack of support for the loadmovie action. Another is that flash tracks are not yet supported by the quicktime streaming server. So you are limited to http delivery for quicktime with flash.

The Good News

Despite some of the current limitations, using flash tracks in quicktime can give impressive results. Because it is a scalable vector format it is a great choice for:

• animated introduction or credit sequences
• anywhere text is used in the video
• branding/identification (e.g. a logo and active link to a website)
• customized navigation

Building the Clock Clip

This movie demonstrations several of the things you can do with flash tracks in quicktime. The original movie file was compressed and prepared using Media Cleaner Pro.

When you import the quicktime video into flash, a preview of the video appears on the stage. A good first step is to set the frame rate of your flash file to match that of the video. That way you can accurately use the timeline in flash. You'll see I set my frame rate to 30fps in the movie properties window.

Adding the interface is easy. You can include test, movie clips and buttons. You can also make use of the alpha channel support to have semi-transparent graphics over the digital video. Looking at the source file you will see that I used a hidden button to add a link to Artbeats who kindly provided the video clip.

The control panel includes fast forward, stop, play and rewind buttons. These are using play, stop and goto next/previous frame actions. The progress bar at the bottom of the video is a simple motion tween which extends over all the frames.

Auto-Play

One issue to be careful of is the auto-play option for quicktime. It is best to set this to off by including "AUTOPLAY=false" in the EMBED tag. If you want the video to start playing right away include a play action on the version first frame. The reason for this is that with autoplay set to on the video may ignore stop actions in a partially loaded quicktime file.

Exporting the Quicktime

After adding the flash elements it is time to export the file as Quicktime (not Quicktime Video). The export window gives you a number of options for how you want the quicktime file to behave.

The layer option refers to whether you want the flash track to display on top of or behind the video track. In this case I want the video to be seen behind the flash interface. The controller option allows you to hide the standard quicktime navigation interface if you create your own in flash.

The flatten option combines the flash and video tracks into a single file. If this is not checked off you will need to make sure the original video file is present in the same folder as the new movie. The advantage of a two file setup is that you can easily make changes to the video track without going into flash.

Recap

The ability to add flash tracks to quicktime means that you can add lightweight scalable graphics to video presentations. You can also use it as a tool to add simple interactivity such as play, pause and links to external websites.