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**Edit**
It's funny how people can fear competition. This thread used to have a title that was accurate to the thread, but it seems that the people at Wildform got upset when I posted info about a superior video encoding method. I wouldn't have bothered adding this note, but I get hits on my site daily from this thread and it keeps reminding me of t he matter.

If you can't handle negative comments about your product (or the products you stand by), then you shouldn't have the products discussed in an open forum, you baby.

----------------------------------------------------


Well... I've heared all the rumors... now I've tried it for myself.

Here's how it goes with MX and video (as far as what I've tested with a .mov file

In MX, you can import as embedded video to play directly in the player, or use the old quicktime method.

I imported a 14.2meg 30 second 160x120px .mov file (with audio) into the library as an embedded clip, at 50% quality.

I dragged the clip onto my stage of my movie, which is set at 12fps

I exported the movie.

The resulting .swf is 293k... the audio is in sync, and the picture quality is fairly good (better than all of the acceptible setting in Flix for reasonable 56k delivery)

The playback was at a full 12fps, and actually looked like video.

I endcoded the same .mov file several times in Flix, and had to get up to a 2.1meg file before the quality was comparable... and this file would never work on dial up.

Sorry Flix guys... this MX thing is gonna hurt. It's a good thing you've got the auto tracing feature going... it may be your savior on

Here's a taste... you'll need Flashplayer 6

12fps 50% quality 300k
http://www.jaycharlesdesign.com/swishforum/vidembed.htm

6fps 70% quality 322k
http://www.jaycharlesdesign.com/swis.../vidembed2.htm

6fps 40% quality 1.7meg .... 6 min 30 sec long!
http://www.jaycharlesdesign.com/swis.../vidembed3.htm
[Edited by monkeypants on 03-09-2002 at 09:03 PM]

Only works in Flash player 6? Now, that's a big problem already :D How long will it be before the entire internet upgrades, it won't be in a few weeks or even in a few months time! I for one, couldn't risk publishing anything yet, that only plays in Flash player 6. There's thousands of Flash 4 scripts still being used.

Looks like Flash MX will remain a toy for some time. Businesses just won't risk creating work that only works on Flash player 6.

Duir.

"The playback was at a full 12fps, and actually looked like video. I endcoded the same .mov file several times in Flix, and had to get up to a 2.1meg file"

I've encoded 30 second .mov files in Flix at *22* fps, with far better resolution than your examples, same dimensions, coming in around 2 mb's...the jury's still out on this one.

MethodAir
http://www.electricmountain.com/home.htm

Monkeypants, please read Kraken's post here at the FK MX forum:

http://board.flashkit.com/board/show...hreadid=277792

This is a Flash profesional speaking about the slow saturation of Flash players; what this person says is a real eye-opener. THE reason why Flash MX will be very slow to compete with Flix is Macromedia's enormous mistake in having video made in MX only work in the Flash player 6.

Flix will remain the number one video to Flash converter for at least a year! Pros and design houses will just not take a chance in NOT advising their clients that MX-produced video work will only be biewable in, what, 3% of the public's browsers for the next 6 months? When they do, clients will just give a BIG thumbs-down.

Long live Flix.

To JB: You have been handed a life-line on a plate by MM's stupidity (Can be nothing else but stupidity. Very surprising to see such a well established company making the entire internet start all over again with a Flash program that produced video that is not compatible with previous versions of their player). Don't fluff it. If I were you I would (dump swfx) pool all Wildform resources into making Flix unbeatable in the 6-9 months you have been handed. This means "save in players" and "save in web page templates". Your encoding is first-rate, just concentrate on the gloss ;)

Just one Flix fan's opinion, I am confident some of what I suggest is sensible.
Duir.

Monkeypants, please read Kraken's post here at the FK MX forum:

http://board.flashkit.com/board/show...hreadid=277792

This is a Flash profesional speaking about the slow saturation of Flash players; what this person says is a real eye-opener. THE reason why Flash MX will be very slow to compete with Flix is Macromedia's enormous mistake in having video made in MX only work in the Flash player 6.

This is a valid point. Fortunately, Flashplayer 6 will support all of the functions supported by version 5, and Flashplayer 5 will play all of the flash 5 functions generated by .swf's exported from MX

What this all boils down to (in terms of the video features) is that those who still have Flash 4 or 5 players installed will get either a)a message at the beginning of the presentation explaining thath they won't see the video portions -or- b) the designer will have had the foresight to simply modify the video functions for Flash 4/5 and have a little sniffer before the movie begins, and load different variables for different player versions. It would take very little effort.

Flix will remain the number one video to Flash converter for at least a year!

You are correct in this... to an extent. People who don't do a ton of video, or who don't know how to use Flash and opt to exclusively use programs like Swish and 3DFA will continue to use programs like Flix simlply because of their ease of use

I think that Flash sites that are video heavy will use the MX video functions extensively. Partly becuse of how easy it will be to work with the video files (they're in the library, just like any other object... no load movie considerations) and the filesize is much smaller.


Pros and design houses will just not take a chance in NOT advising their clients that MX-produced video work will only be biewable in, what, 3% of the public's browsers for the next 6 months? When they do, clients will just give a BIG thumbs-down.

If they are designers of any caliber, they will will take that into consideration when they are planning their projects, and explore using more than one method of delivery for each presentation. The truth is that if the designer is working with the general public audience in mind, they are not using .swf video at all simply because the average viewer is on a dial up connection. I think designers will get used to developing flexible .swf content, just as they have gotten used to writing code for multiple browsers.


To quote MethodAir:

I've encoded 30 second .mov files in Flix at *22* fps, with far better resolution than your examples, same dimensions, coming in around 2 mb's...the jury's still out on this one.

In terms of delivery, Flix video simply isn't practical for files of this length. How many people do you know that will wait 6 minutes for 30 seconds of video?

My examples were to illustrate a comparitive point. At 300k and 322k, the video almost streams over an average 56k connection. This makes it practical for delivery in almost every circumstance.

Long live Flix.

I hope so. Wildform had delivered some pretty ingenious products... and I'm sure they will continue to do so.

To JB: You have been handed a life-line on a plate by MM's stupidity (Can be nothing else but stupidity. Very surprising to see such a well established company making the entire internet start all over again with a Flash program that produced video that is not compatible with previous versions of their player).

Flash, like all communication technologies, is in a state of constant revision. There are going to be changes, and tools & players will become obsoleted. People are not so against change as you might think. If they were we'd all still be riding horses. There's plenty of Flash 5 sites out there... and plenty of Flash 5 players to watch them,...and Flash 5 isn't so old.

Don't fluff it. If I were you I would (dump swfx) pool all Wildform resources into making Flix unbeatable in the 6-9 months you have been handed. This means "save in players" and "save in web page templates". Your encoding is first-rate, just concentrate on the gloss ;)

Keep in mind that the technology Macromedia is using for the Flash 6 player will eventually be available to license. Then the Wildform forls will be able to release a new version of Flix that will use the same codec, and offer the same easy to use front end that made Flix such a great program to begin with. That's how it works when you are in the business of an evolving technology.

Monkeypants, as you didn't provide a Flix example in your comparison, I just wanted to point out your Flix file size seemed strangely high considering the quality of the video. I encoded the audio in my example at 44/khz, 112/bitrate as opposed to the much lower bitrate you were using. Sometimes you can't sacfrifice quality and 6/fps, pixelated video, with poor audio etc) will not cut it.

Either way, I bet I could squeeze a 30 second video with comparable quality in Flix to the ones you did in MX.

MethodAir
http://www.electricmountain.com/home.htm





[Edited by MethodAir on 03-11-2002 at 04:06 AM]

Thanks monkeypants, an enjoyable read. I think you may have dismissed what Kraken was saying a tad too quickly. She looks like she is a pro and in the thick of it. Well, I read her piece and I saw a lot more reality than perhaps you did. Theory and the real world are two different beasts; I know for a fact you speak from experience because I have enjoyed your work for while now, but in this thread you words seem to be more theory and idyll than real world.
Duir.

Hi.
I have already posted on this issue in this forum, but I'll chime in again here.
Flix will be releasing a version with Flash MX output as soon as Flash MX is released (featuring 2 pass VBR bitrate control). That way, with Flix you will be able to encode Flash 3/4/5 video and Flash 6 video. In addition you will be able to take advantage of all the great features that come with Flix - which include bitrate control, vectorized video, batch encoding, automatic swf functions, overlays, multiple outputs, etc.
Macromedia is going to be pushing a $300 video encoding product to produce their Flash 6 video for the web. This $300 tool will have (according to the promotional literature) bitrate control, two pass bitrate control (Flash MX only uses single pass), batch encoding, and several other useful features. So Macromedia is banking ont he fact that Flash MX is not enough to do the job. Ultimately, users can choose whether to pay $300 for the Macromedia encoding tool (in addition to the $500 for Flash 6) or to buy Flix for $129.
For those of you who haven't read the complete post I made earlier comparing Flix to Flash MX, you can read it here:
http://board.flashkit.com/board/show...hreadid=276051
Essentially, Flix is loaded with features that if you use them even once, it pays for the software. This will not change with the introduction of Flash MX. What the introduction of Flash MX does, is provide a new, higher quality, output format for Flix.
JB

Hang on, Flash MX IS the new Flash program, there is no Flash 6. There is a Flash 6 PLAYER, not Flash 6 program. Someone at the FK MX forum already cleared this up for me. Oh well, if you have better info on this please clarify it once and for all please.
Duir.

Added, in fact I am right, it was you in fact who told me that, "Just to clarify for you, Flash 6 is Flash MX" in this forum!

So what's this in your post above? :

users can choose whether to pay $300 for the Macromedia encoding tool (in addition to the $500 for Flash 6)

By 'Macromedia encoding tool' you mean Flash MX right? But you have said that, "Just to clarify for you, Flash 6 is Flash MX".

Upgrading to the new Flash program is not going to cost $800 is it?
[Edited by Duir on 03-11-2002 at 03:50 PM]

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Duir
Hang on, Flash MX IS the new Flash program, there is no Flash 6. There is a Flash 6 PLAYER, not Flash 6 program. Someone at the FK MX forum already cleared this up for me. Oh well, if you have better info on this please clarify it once and for all please.
Duir.

Added, in fact I am right, it was you in fact who told me that, "Just to clarify for you, Flash 6 is Flash MX" in this forum!

So what's this in your post above? :

users can choose whether to pay $300 for the Macromedia encoding tool (in addition to the $500 for Flash 6)

By 'Macromedia encoding tool' you mean Flash MX right? But you have said that, "Just to clarify for you, Flash 6 is Flash MX".

Upgrading to the new Flash program is not going to cost $800 is it?
[Edited by Duir on 03-11-2002 at 03:50 PM]

---

Let's all just get over this right now: Flash MX is the 6th version of Flash, but it is called "Flash MX".

Flash MX (6) is $500.00. It allows you to bring video into Flash.

But if you want to have any type of control, you will need to buy a $300.00 add on program to go along with Flash MX.

So, if you want the full video features available in Flash MX, then you'll need:

Flash MX: $500.00
The Add on program: $300.00
__________________________
Total: $800.00

Sickening, isn't it? The other sickening part is Macromedia isn't publicizing any of this info, at least not where I can find it. I had to do some serious digging to find this out.

-scott
http://scottmanning.com/

Whatever anyone says

Flash MX cannot produce video or audio files that are set to stream over certain internet connections like Flix can.

Apparently they are working on something called Sorensen "Squeeze" which may do the job, but at this point MX just cant do it

I skimmed over the previous posts and remember someone talking about a 293KB file over a 56K connection....yea i will leave that one there!!!

Flix is a fantastic tool and if used in the right manner can be and i think will be a serious contender to Windows Media Player, Reel, and Quicktime, for audio and video streaming playback.

As for MX itself - it looks like it is just a flashy upgrade from flash 5 with shortcuts in the form of "components" that allow those developers without any actionScript knowledge to presume that they do.

Just my humble opinion - i am sure i will get slated for that!!!!!!!

gilesb

Just bought Flix and am pissed that I haven't received my password yet - 1 hour and counting....

However it gave me the time to browse this forum.

Flash in v. 4 was all excited about embedded video - and its cursory embedded .mov system was fine. However in 5 they gave quicktime the farm by allowing quicktime to embed flash in its files, but stripping that capability from it's own player. This was obviously a collosal mistake which their paying for now by trying to reincorporate video (though they've done a great job) in a new player which will take months to propogate. Had they done this in 5, flash video would already have reached mainstream acceptance. However now we're doing all of this 18 months late.

My question is - does anybody know the specific politics behind MM's crazy quicktime decision?

can MX convert imported .mov or .avi files and export them as a vector movie like in Flix ??

No. Flix is the only software available that converts video into vectors.
jb

I've been trying to import a mov file as well but my sound won't sync up. How do you get it to sync?

Thanks
ryan

Hi.
What program are you asking about?
jb

Macromedia Flash, but I got another mov and that one was able to sync just fine.

Thanks
Ryan

FYI, this is the Wildform Flix forum.
If you're working with video in Flash you may want to check out our software, Flix. For more information check out: www.wildform.com/flix
jb

Yeah... this is the Flix forum, and if you don't have something nice to say about flix, then get out... or they'll delete your thread posts and change the title of your thread.

Big babies.