Dilema.....need help selecting 3rd party projector

[FlashJester Support Team]

No sorry Jugglor currenlty doesn't support Direct X feature, just the normal Fullscreen and AllowScale commands.

;(

[Macromind]

Crap. I think I'm screwed.

I really want to have the performance of the Flash Player combined with the ability to scale to fit any resolution.

Maybe I can have one of these third party projectors launch, detect the users resolution and offer to switch them to 1280x1024. Once they do or if they decline I'll have it launch the real Flash Player .exe version with the fullscreen FScommand. If they've changed to 1280 x 1024, all will look great. If they declined to do so, at least they know why the movie looks squished like the intro credits on a Godzilla movie.

Gambini, you've been awefully quiet...any workarounds with Flash Studio Pro?

[Gambini]

Hey, which OS will the Kiosk have installed? The slowdown with the OCX is only a problem on Pre Win2k Windows - so if it's running XP or Win2k, there should be no slowdown at all with Flash Studio PRO

[Macromind]

It will be XP or 2000. But from what I understand the performance will be the same as it is in a webbrowser on one of those platforms. From my testing so far, the movie definitely runs slower in a web page than in the Flash Player.

Also, I'm going to be sending this out on CD as well, which is where I need to have control over scaling to match the users resolution exactly. I wouldn't mind if the movie only ran slowly for users with pre Windows 2000(shame on them anyway ), but it needs to run at least as fast as it would in the player in Win 2000 and XP.

[Gambini]

Hey Macromind, have you downloaded any of the software and tried it - the speed loss is barely noticable on post Win2k machines.

[XcVbSdRw]

Originally posted by Gambini
So, back to Flash Studio PRO and SWF Studio - both these products use the Flash OCX to render the SWF in their own Players, so the OCX is required on systems, but both apps allow you to package the OCX into your projectors, so if the end user does not have it installed, the projector will silently install it.

But if the end user does not have admin rights, a common situation in the corporate world, the projector will fail, probably silently.

It is my understanding that anyone can play a Flash-produced EXE but they must have admin rights to successfully install and play an SWF Studio or Flash Studio EXE. This is because these programs need to install and register the Flash OCX (and other files*), something non-admin users cannot do.

This is a major problem for my company because we use Flash to create small, fast-loading marketing pieces that users will only tolerate if they install behind the scenes and run quickly. We cannot use SWF Studio or Flash Studio for these types of applications because we never know who will run into the "no admin rights" problem. We try to run pure Flash executables and have had no reports of these not being usable on non-admin setups.

On the other hand, if you are building an application your users really WANT to install (because they've purchased it or for whatever reason desire it), they may be willing to tolerate this problem.

Bottom line is, IMHO, it depends on how you intend to use your app as to whether or not this is a show-stopper. For us, this is the fatal flaw in these products.


* FYI, another issue with SWF Studio (I'm not sure about Flash Studio) is that it bundles and installs the Visual Basic run-time files which can increase the size of your projector substantially.

[Macromind]

I'm not concerned about size. Just performance (yes Gambini I will be testing the software shortly) and the ability to scale to fit any resolution exactly. Let's say for example you author in 800 x 600 and the user has their desktop set to 1280 x 1024. They will get black bars on top and bottom and the movie will be squished vertically a little. I don't now why Macromedia didn't bundle the ability to scale to fit with the projector since you can do it if you make an html/swf file.

[FlashJester Support Team]

This could be one of 2 things.

1. You might have the

FSCOMMAND("ALLOWSCALE", "FALSE")

in your FLA so remove it

2. It's the way you have designed your FLA movie. You may need to adjust the Flash file to accomate the fullscreen command.

Upload the projector file somewhere and we'll see what the exact problem is.

[Macromind]

Jester,

My fullscreen command is working fine. The problem ocurs when I play a fullscreen movie created at 1280x1024 on a display set to 1024x768.

In case you missed my original post here's my dilema:

I am doing a kiosk for a BIG show and my flash stage is set at 1280x1024. I used this resolution because the native resolution of the LCD screen in the kiosk is 1280x1024 and therefore it provides the sharpest image. Problem is, I need to send this product out on cd as well. I am using th FScommand to set the projector to full screen, but on any normal 4:3 aspect ratio resolution such as 1024x768 I get black bars on the sides of the screen and the image is distorted (squashed). I need to find a 3rd party projector which can create an .exe which can scale to fit the user's resolution and aspect ratio exactly without black bars.

You can test this yourself if you do the following.

1. Import a 1280 x 1024 jpeg into a 1280 x 1024 movie.
2. Use FSCOMMAND("ALLOWSCALE", "True")
3. Create a projector (.exe)
4. Switch your screen resolution to 1024 x 768
4. Run your .exe

You will see black bars on the left and right and the movie will be a little squashed.

I know what causes this....it is the inability of the projector to scale to fit resolutions exactly (which IS possible with an html/swf file). I need to have this movie at 1280x1024, so switching to a 4:3 aspect ratio movie size is not an option. Even if I did author in say 1024x768, if a user has his/her screen resolution set to 1280x1024 they will see black bars on top and bottom instead and still get a squashed movie since they are viewing it at a 5:4 aspect ratio.

[FlashJester Support Team]

Email us a sample file to support@***********.com and we will take a look here.

[Macromind]

Hey Jester,

I've sent you the files.
Thanks for your help!

Can I post the files in this forum as well or can I only put links to the files sitting on a web server?