Hello,

I am wondering about how flash sites load. I create linear sound/image flash pieces and I usually have a preloader so the sounds and .jpg's sync, but the piece I'm currently working on has about ten 600k video clips and I don't want to have the viewer wait for everything to download before the piece plays.

The effect I'd like to create is that each video clip appears only when a vister rolls over it so that the 600k movies only appear one at a time and according to the viewer's mouse actions. My first thought was that by creating a really wide html page and by placing the ten clips in a long line with each as a seperate .swf with it's own preloader onto the page, instead of having one large .swf with a preloader for the whole thing I could outwit time -ie. the shortest .swf would download and then play while the longer ones that were out of sight could be loading. The more I got to thinking about it though, the more I feared that rather than downloading things in a linear fashion like I want the viewer to experience the piece, actually everything would download simultaneously so that the total amount of bytes to load would slow everything down. Is this true?

Then I thought instead maybe I could work within flash to create a staggered download by using an action script like the loadMovie command. For instance, as a viewer enters frame 1 that contains the first clip there could be a stop action and a loadMovie command to begin loading the second clip which would be on frame 2. Then when they finished looking at the clip on frame 1 and went on to frame 2 that clip would be loaded and a new loadMovie action would trigger the third clip to load etc... Can the .swf's that get loaded with the loadMovie command have preloaders? and will a preloader at the beginning of the whole piece not take into account those .swf files that are to load with the loadMovie command?

Or am I going about this all wrong? Can I design a preloader to load only 50% of the total bytes and then have the rest download in a linear fashion according to the .swf's timeline? Or can I somehow use levels so that each video clip resides on a different level and then write an action where each of the levels loads successively?

I have avoided having the clips stream because I want to control the quality of the clips and also have them appear without the quicktime player. Can someone who isn't as time impaired as me help me figure out how I can have a preloader that loads the first 600k and then while each of the following 600k clips plays the next one is loading, or something of the kind?

thanks,

llyfre