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"Lance Birch" <-> wrote in message news:41e204ea$1@news.povray.org...
> "Steve Shelby" <ssh### [at] shelbyvision com> wrote in message
> news:41e152f4$1@news.povray.org...
<snip>
> If you want to display animations on your website (right on the page), for
> example if you have a gallery of animations that you want to be able to
> stream...
<snip>
Thank you, that's exactly the use I was interested in, and your answer was
very helpful.
Steve Shelby
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Lance, great answer - valuable info here.
I need to put some very high res 3D anims (POV-generated, <very> abstract,
fast moving, colorful images) on line. All things considered (quality being
top priority), do you think the MX Pro version is the best of all choices?
thanks much.
D.
"Lance Birch" <-> wrote in message news:41e204ea$1@news.povray.org...
> "Steve Shelby" <ssh### [at] shelbyvisioncom> wrote in message
> news:41e152f4$1@news.povray.org...
> > Hi all,
> > Do any of you out there use Macromedia Flash, and if so, why, and if
not,
> > why not? I'm curious because I'm wondering if it would be better than
> > Windows Media Player for displaying animations on a website. I know it
is
> > expensive, but I looked on Ebay, and it's available there for a pretty
> > reasonable price.
> > Thank you,
> > Steve Shelby
>
> I think that Tom and GrimDude have jumped the gun slightly in answering
your
> question (no offence guys, it's just that there's a little more to be said
> on the subject than "don't use Flash")...
>
> Avoiding the subject of whether the video is necessary in the first place
> (and excluding the idea of making entire websites using Flash, which
luckily
> pretty much no one does these days as they've finally realised it's like
> making an entire website using full-browser JPEGs):
>
> If you're talking about video displayed directly in a website, Flash is
> actually a good alternative to what else is around (so the rest of my
> response focuses on that use of Flash - video in a web page); if you're
> talking about video that a user downloads, it's not a good format (MPEG or
> something more universal is a better bet).
>
> Now, on to Flash and video in a web page:
>
> If you want to display animations on your website (right on the page), for
> example if you have a gallery of animations that you want to be able to
> stream, or you're trying to display methods/techniques of something, or if
> you have video footage that you want to display, Flash is actually a
pretty
> good alternative to encoding the files in WMV, MOV, etc... if the
animation
> isn't of a very high resolution.
>
> The reason is that most people have Flash Player 6 or higher, which means
> they can display video encoded in the flash video format FLV. This
> eliminates problems with codec compatibility (for example, even if you
have
> the ability to play WMV files, some WMV files won't work because of
various
> versions of the codec, or because Windows Media Player just doesn't want
to
> play nice with the browser of choice that the user has), and of having to
> get users to install yet another plugin or player that attempts to take
over
> the system (Real Player, Quicktime, etc - although these now have
> non-official "codec packs" available, not many people want to go to the
> trouble of installing them). Flash is good in this respect because
Windows
> has for a long time come with the IE Flash Player installed by default.
>
> For users of other browsers and platforms, the Flash Player is available
> there as well, and is one of the few plugins that's pretty painless and
> quick to install - this makes it significantly better than Quicktime, Real
> Player or Windows Media Player 9/10/11/whateverthey'reuptonow in this
> regard.
>
> So, if you want to stream video and have it displayed on a web page
(rather
> than downloading it, or whatever), encoding the video in FLV in Flash is
> actually a pretty good way.
>
> Of course, there will be people who will not want to install Flash Player
or
> who don't have it installed, for whatever reason - but as has been
> mentioned, this is the same with *any* plugin, so there will always be a
> number of users who won't be able to view the content regardless of the
type
> of file you encode the animation in.
>
> Now the downsides:
>
> * Flash is expensive to purchase.
> * Flash does a pretty good job of encoding MOV/WMV/etc into FLV but to get
> *really* good quality and still have small file sizes, you either need the
> additional Sorenson encoding program (I think it's called Spark), which is
> an additional cost, or you need the top Flash version (MX Pro), which also
> comes with a better encoder.
> * Not all users will have Flash installed (but that's like any proprietary
> format/plugin)
>
> So in summary:
>
> If you want to put video into a web page directly (have it display on the
> page along with other content) and/or you want to stream video, Flash is a
> pretty good alternative compared to Quicktime, Real Player and Windows
> Media, so long as the video isn't of a very large resolution. Flash does,
> however, cost a lot, and to get the best video compression you'll need
> either the most expensive version of Flash, or the standard version with
the
> Sorenson Spark encoder utility. If you want to provide video in a format
> that people can download, Flash isn't the right thing to use - something
> like Quicktime, Real Player or Windows Media would be better suited, or a
> more widely-supported format like MPEG would be even better.
>
> Lance.
>
> thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au
> thehandle - www.thehandle.com
>
>
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"Dennis Miller" <dhm### [at] comcastnet> wrote in message
news:41e32b3a@news.povray.org...
> Lance, great answer - valuable info here.
> I need to put some very high res 3D anims (POV-generated, <very> abstract,
> fast moving, colorful images) on line. All things considered (quality
being
> top priority), do you think the MX Pro version is the best of all choices?
> thanks much.
> D.
If you're going to put high res video on a site, Flash probably isn't the
right solution (unless they aren't long animations). It'd be better to
allow the user to download the video as a separate file (something like
XviD, Quicktime, Windows Media...). Although, then you hit the problem of
people being able to play those files (which will be a problem in some
instances with Flash, too, if people don't have the plugin).
Head to:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/13609381/103-5161976-6373430
And click on the title of one of the short films to view it as a Flash
movie. This should give you some idea of what the format does and doesn't
do well. FLV handles higher resolutions better when using the Sorenson
codec.
It'd be a good idea to search for a bunch of sites using Flash video and see
what the quality is like, then head to sorenson.com to read some info about
their codec (by the way, regardless of which codec is used - the default
Flash FLV codec or the Sorenson Flash FLV codec - both are supported by
Flash Player natively). They probably have some examples of using their
codec with higher resolution videos, or comparisons between their codec and
the standard codec, which will give you a better idea of how the format
handles the sort of video you want to put online.
If you decide that Flash will probably be able to handle what you want to
do, unless you really need the additional features of the Pro version, it'd
probably be cheaper and better to buy the Standard version with the Sorenson
encoder to encode the FLVs at high quality.
Lance.
thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au
thehandle - www.thehandle.com
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"Lance Birch" <-> wrote in message news:41e33a0b@news.povray.org...
> If you decide that Flash will probably be able to handle what you want to
> do, unless you really need the additional features of the Pro version,
> it'd
> probably be cheaper and better to buy the Standard version with the
> Sorenson
> encoder to encode the FLVs at high quality.
>
I thought this might be of interest. I just discovered that for encoding
existing AVI's, MPG's, MOV's, etc. to FLV, you don't need Macromedia Flash
at all. There's a program called "Turbine Video Encoder" available here:
http://www.bluepacific.com/products/turbinevideo/default.htm
It costs $39, but they also have a fully-functional free version, that puts
a little logo in the corner of the video. I downloaded it but havn't had a
chance to try it yet.
Steve Shelby
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Steve Shelby wrote:
> "Lance Birch" <-> wrote in message news:41e33a0b@news.povray.org...
>
>>If you decide that Flash will probably be able to handle what you want to
>>do, unless you really need the additional features of the Pro version,
>>it'd
>>probably be cheaper and better to buy the Standard version with the
>>Sorenson
>>encoder to encode the FLVs at high quality.
>>
>
> I thought this might be of interest. I just discovered that for encoding
> existing AVI's, MPG's, MOV's, etc. to FLV, you don't need Macromedia Flash
> at all. There's a program called "Turbine Video Encoder" available here:
> http://www.bluepacific.com/products/turbinevideo/default.htm
> It costs $39, but they also have a fully-functional free version, that puts
> a little logo in the corner of the video. I downloaded it but havn't had a
> chance to try it yet.
> Steve Shelby
>
>
Follow up to Off-topic
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Lance Birch <-> wrote:
> XviD, Quicktime, Windows Media
I would prefer the open format instead of the closed proprietary ones.
It has better quality too.
--
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}// - Warp -
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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:41e3ae5f@news.povray.org...
> Lance Birch <-> wrote:
> > XviD, Quicktime, Windows Media
>
> I would prefer the open format instead of the closed proprietary ones.
> It has better quality too.
That's why I listed it first :)
Lance.
thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au
thehandle - www.thehandle.com
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