audio streaming problem? pleaze help

Hi all,
I have a dilemma.
I have an animated short that is about 3-4 mins long. With just the graphics alone the preload is 5.6 sec on a 28.8.
Now when I put the audio in the preload is 46 secs. I need to figure out a way to bring the preload down to no higher than 15 sec on a 28.8.
I have tried to load the sound as a separate SWF into an dummy movie clip. And the preload of the Sound.swf is 0.1 sec. The problem I have
is that the graphics load and plays and the audio starts out of synch and then chokes. And all the while the graphics keep playing (as they should) but the audio
stops to load.
The audio is 11k mono wav and the flash audio stream compression is set to 16k fast
I have a preloader that loads the sound.swf while the graphics are preloading

tellTarget ("/dummy") {
loadMovie ("VO.swf", "/dummy");
}

and when the graphics are loaded


tellTarget ("/dummy") {
gotoAndPlay (2);
}

it works great locally but on a test machine with a 28.8 the audio is out of synch.
I'm at a loss. What can I do?
Curse you all who have 28.8's
:)

thanx
bean

A thought...use "if frame is loaded" to hold graphics movie, until a good chunk of the audio file is loaded, then use "tell target" from the audio swf to the graphics swf, i.e the "tell target" commands are in the audio swf.
If the audio is not music, and you have a brief moment of silence, it is possible to use "if frame is loaded" to pause the movie in the middle briefly, to let the rest of the audio load.

You cannot sync an external sound.swf to your main movie . It must be in the main timeline . Sounds will always be huge when it comes to web .

I know you can't sync an external sound.swf to a movie. But there has to be a way to make them load up and run parallel to each other.
I'll try what magiksound suggested.
but how much control do you have to a loaded .swf in a blank MC?

Have you considered writing a *.smi file to sync the audio track with the flash movie. The finished product will them play in the Real Player. Your audio buffering should only take 15 secs or so.

Good luck.

nope, the Client won't allow that one.
But doesn't Director use a better audio compression? VOX or sumthin?
What does flash use? Cause its really crappy. Its great for small sounds. It would be nice if flash used the same type of compression as Director or Streammaker.
But that is only wishful thinking. We have to play with the cards we're dealt, I guess.

well, I have to disagree GMF, If you put a "tell target" every 10 frames or so in a streaming audio swf, syncing the main timeline, syncing works quite well, in addtion if you have a tween intensive section you can let the sync down for a moment to actually see CPU intensive content, and pick the sync up a moment latter, for this reason I prefer this method to main timeline audio streaming.

Thats fine with me, magiksound but it would be a bigtime job to make it with a 3-4 min long song ,but it can be done with your way.
[Edited by GmF on 05-04-2001 at 03:59 PM]

P.S make a tut and add it :)

:::bowing low::::thanks venerable master, perhaps I shall

That would be great, we all learn something new every day (atleast me) and you proved that in your last post. There are things in life that you dont think about atall .

I have thought long and hard, but my math skills and action scripting are not up to this task: instead of tell targets in each frame, what about a "call" action, which would have a loop, which would re-set a varible for the "tell target" frame each loop through. This way instead of having to hand write all those tell targets, just paste frames (say 10")with one "call" action, as fast as you can click at a keyboard. or a 10 frame embeded movie clip, with a "call" action could sync forever. Perhaps some action scripting, math wizard can add the missing link?

Guess what , i m not a "fan" of actionscripting myself (yet) but i still learn . Read read and read , trail and error , trail and error .:D

It is possible to get the _currentframe of the audio.swf and set the _currentframe of the graphics to corrospond with the audio.swf
But isn't that the same as putting the audio track on the main stage of the graphics?
Or will this bring preload down?
I guess I'll try that.
test test test:)

It sounds possible (no pun intended) I am a flash4 user really, and I have not used those commands, BUT the reason I load the audio seperatly is so I can have my graphics already loaded,so when I load the audio swf as a frame action, it can stream away all by its lonesome, see? Streaming audio takes much toying with, and beware of AOL, strong tendency to freeze machines while streaming large files for no apparent reason.

I don't know if I can help cutting the preload time down to 15secs, but you can sync a loaded audio file to the graphics.

First you must preload all the graphics for the animation. Make a little loop that checks for a _framesloaded.

Once the graphics are loaded you can start loading your audio.swf into any level. The audio swf must be formatted with a streaming sound, and contain a stop action in the first frame.

Set the global property for sound buffer time to zero. Since the audio swf has a stop command in the first frame you can handle the buffer time with action cript. Just check the the _framesloaded on the level you load the audio swf into. If 5-15 frames are loaded you can execute an action to sync the graphics and audio.

Tell you main timeline to play or break out of a loop. And tell the level you loaded the sound into to goto and play frame 2. The streaming sound in the level will force the frame rate of your main timeline in level 0. The trick is starting the graphics sequence and audio level at the same time.

Jason

Jason,
just how do you checkframes across levels? (flash4) I've been trying to make it work and I can't seem to get the syntax correct.

Tahnks

the syntax for a target level is

_level#/


To check framesloaded in level 100 the command is

GetProperty ("_level100/", _framesloaded )


to target a movie clip in level 100

_level100/movieclip


To target the main timeline from a level

_level0/

ok got it, thanks

So I got that code working just fine, but that brings me to another commen problem, why does the browser freeze up shortly past the "checkframe" ie the movie preloads 100k, starts streaming, but freezes shorthly past playing that 100k, I noticed download streaming freezes also, this seems to be a commen problem with large streaming files. any idea why, or what is happening?
Thanks