Flash Video with Subtitles

[4romAshz2Flashz]

I've been approached by a client to encode Flash videos for a website. These videos were previously done by a different vendor. I need to figure out the video/audio specifications and duplicate the desired end product. The flash player also offers subtitles. What is the process involved in creating the subtitles? Thank you.

[flashpipe1]

If you're compressing FLV files again, you'll end up with poorer quality videos. Why do they need to be re-compressed? If you have the original, uncompressed files, you can encode a variety of ways depending on delivery needs. It's basically just a balance between quality and size.

What are you using to compress the files? I prefer FlixPro but there are a ton of options out there.

As far as sub-titles, there's no way I know of to "automate" that process. We've done it in the past, for projects requiring translation, by setting up an xml file with the sub-titles "chunked" out into sections that fit inside the text box we set up and then we just entered the time codes from the video into the xml file and loaded them based on the video playback location.

Hope that helps!

[4romAshz2Flashz]

If you're compressing FLV files again, you'll end up with poorer quality videos. Why do they need to be re-compressed? If you have the original, uncompressed files, you can encode a variety of ways depending on delivery needs. It's basically just a balance between quality and size.

What are you using to compress the files? I prefer FlixPro but there are a ton of options out there.

As far as sub-titles, there's no way I know of to "automate" that process. We've done it in the past, for projects requiring translation, by setting up an xml file with the sub-titles "chunked" out into sections that fit inside the text box we set up and then we just entered the time codes from the video into the xml file and loaded them based on the video playback location.

Hope that helps!

I apologize, I didn't fully explain my position. I'm not re-encoding any videos. I'm merely determining the video/audio specifications that have been done in the past, so that future videos that I encode will meet the same specifications.

I currently use Episode to convert files to WMV and FLV.

I figured there was no easy way around it. Do you know of any tutorials on how to create an XML file and link it to time code on a flash video? Thank you!

[flashpipe1]

Ah, I use generally flvPlayer to view properties of an flv file. It's got a pretty comprehensive breakdown and it's freeware (http://www.applian.com/flvplayer/)

There are a few tutorials out there on creating XML cuepoints.

There's one in AS2:
http://www.actionscript.org/resource...XML/Page1.html

There's actually a component that was introduced in CS3 but I've never used it:
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/...s_flash_video/

We did ours in AS3 and basically just parsed the XML into two arrays, then created a timer that checked the timecode in the first array and displayed the appropriate text from the second array.

Hope that helps.

[4romAshz2Flashz]

Thank you! I appreciate it!

[rdoyle720]

Captionate is a great tool to add cuepoints or create the XML. It's PC only, but is quite handy.