Using Flash Video Encoder Trademarks 1 Step RoboPDF, ActiveEdit, ActiveTest, Authorware, Blue Sky Software, Blue Sky, Breeze, Breezo, Captivate, Central, ColdFusion, Contribute, Database Explorer, Director, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, FlashCast, FlashHelp, Flash Lite, FlashPaper, Flash Video Encoder, Flex, Flex Builder, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JRun, MacRecorder, Macromedia, MXML, RoboEngine, RoboHelp, RoboInfo, RoboPDF, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, SoundEdit, Studio MX, UltraDev, and WebHelp are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally. Third-Party Information This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites. Speech compression and decompression technology licensed from Nellymoser, Inc. (www.nellymoser.com). SorensonTM SparkTM video compression and decompression technology licensed from Sorenson Media, Inc. Opera ® browser Copyright © 1995-2002 Opera Software ASA and its suppliers. All rights reserved. Macromedia Flash 8 video is powered by On2 TrueMotion video technology. © 1992-2005 On2 Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.on2.com. Visual SourceSafe is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Copyright © 2005 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without written approval from Macromedia, Inc. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the owner or authorized user of a valid copy of the software with which this manual was provided may print out one copy of this manual from an electronic version of this manual for the sole purpose of such owner or authorized user learning to use such software, provided that no part of this manual may be printed out, reproduced, distributed, resold, or transmitted for any other purposes, including, without limitation, commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this documentation or providing paid-for support services. Acknowledgments Project Management: Sheila McGinn Writing: Chris Bedford Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato Lead Editor: Lisa Stanziano Editing: Lisa Stanziano, Anne Szabla Production Management: Patrice O'Neill, Kristin Conradi, Yuko Yagi Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Paul Benkman. John Francis, Geeta Karmarkar, Masayo Noda, Paul Rangel, Arena Reed, Mario Reynoso Special thanks to Jody Bleyle, Mary Burger, Lisa Friendly, Stephanie Gowin, Bonnie Loo, Mary Ann Walsh, Erick Vera, the beta testers, and the entire Flash and Flash Player engineering and QA teams. First Edition: September 2005 Macromedia, Inc. 601 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94103 Contents Using Flash Video Encoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 About Flash Video and Flash Video Encoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 About Flash Video Exporter (QuickTime Export plug-in) . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Supported video compression codecs for Flash Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Comparing the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark video codecs . . . . . . 8 Understanding video standards and terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Frame rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Data rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Aspect ratios (frame size) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 About encoding audio-only files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 About cue points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Encoding video with Flash Video Encoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Saving the encoding queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Removing files from the encoding queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Skipping a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Stopping the encoding of the current file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Selecting advanced video encoding settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Specifying advanced video encoding settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Specifying advanced audio encoding settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Defining and embedding cue points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Cropping and trimming video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Setting Flash Video Encoder preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Viewing the Flash Video Encoder log file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Troubleshooting video encoding errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3 4 Contents Using Flash Video Encoder Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder is a stand-alone video encoding application that lets you encode video in Macromedia Flash Video (FLV) format. The FLV format lets you easily incorporate video into a web page or Flash document in a format that almost anyone can view using the Flash Player. The ubiquity of Flash Player ensures that most visitors to your website can view Flash Video without downloading additional plug-ins, so you can reach the largest possible Internet viewing audience with low development, testing, and support costs. Flash Video Encoder comes with Macromedia Flash Professional 8 or Macromedia Studio 8. This chapter contains the following topics: About Flash Video and Flash Video Encoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Supported video compression codecs for Flash Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Understanding video standards and terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 About encoding audio-only files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 About cue points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Encoding video with Flash Video Encoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Selecting advanced video encoding settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Setting Flash Video Encoder preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Viewing the Flash Video Encoder log file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Troubleshooting video encoding errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 5 About Flash Video and Flash Video Encoder Flash Video offers technological and creative benefits that let you create rich, immersive experiences that combine video presentations with data, graphics, sound, and interactive control. Flash Video provides full creative control and integrates easily into your website. You can use video skins (graphic themes) to customize video presentations, incorporate your organization's branding, and design unique controls that let visitors to your website interact with video content. Flash treats Flash Video simply as a media type, so you can layer, script, and control video like any other object in a Flash SWF file. Flash Video is an integral part of the viewing experience, not a separate pop-up window that plays video externally and interrupts the experience. Flash Video Encoder lets you encode video files in either the On2 VP6 or Sorenson Spark video codecs. A codec is an algorithm that controls how video files are compressed during import and and decompressed during playback. You can use Flash Video Encoder on a computer that does not have Flash or other Macromedia Studio products installed. This configuration lets you continue working with Flash, Dreamweaver, or another application because video encoding is a processor-intensive activity that often prevents you from simultaneously working in other applications. Using Flash Video Encoder on a dedicated computer for video encoding lets you batchprocess multiple video clips; in environments where video is a significant form of content, batch processing produces an expedited workflow. You can add, reorder, and change the encoding settings of files in the batch processing queue while Flash Video Encoder is encoding video files. About Flash Video Exporter (QuickTime Export plug-in) If you have Macromedia Flash Professional 8 and QuickTime 6.1.1 or later installed on your computer, you can use the Macromedia Flash Video Exporter (QuickTime Export plug-in) to export FLV files from supported video-editing applications. You can then import these FLV files directly into Flash to use in your Flash documents. The QuickTime Export plug-in is installed by the Flash 8 Video Encoder installer. 6 Using Flash Video Encoder The following video-editing applications are supported by the QuickTime Export plug-in: Adobe After Effects (Windows and Macintosh) Apple FinalCut Pro (Macintosh) Apple QuickTime Pro (Windows and Macintosh) Avid Xpress DV (Windows and Macintosh) Avid Xpress DV does not support the encoding of an alpha channel when you use it to export to the FLV video format. N OT E Exporting FLV files from either Flash 8 Video Encoder or video-editing applications using the QuickTime Export plug-in significantly streamlines the workflow in using FLV files in your Flash documents. With the QuickTime Export plug-in, you can select encoding options for video and audio content as you export, including frame rate, bit rate, quality, and other options. You can import FLV files directly into Flash without needing to re-encode the video after you import them. Supported video compression codecs for Flash Video By default, Flash Video Encoder encodes video using the On2 VP6 codec for use with Flash Player 8 and the Sorenson Spark codec for use with Flash Player 7. To understand how Flash achieves high-quality video with low bandwidth requirements, you should understand video compression. There are two types of compression that can be applied to digital media: spatial and temporal. Spatial compression is applied to a single frame of data, independent of any surrounding frames. Spatial compression can be lossless (in which no data is discarded from the image) or lossy (in which data is selectively discarded). A spatially compressed frame is often called an intraframe. Temporal compression identifies the differences between frames and stores only those differences, so that frames are described based on their difference from the preceding frame. Unchanged areas are simply repeated from the previous frame(s). A temporally compressed frame is often called an interframe. Both the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark are interframe codecs. Although many other codecs use intraframe compression (for example, JPEG is an intraframe codec), the efficient interframe compression of the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark codecs, among other features, distinguishes them from other compression technologies because these codecs require a much lower data rate (also known as the bit rate) to produce high-quality video. Supported video compression codecs for Flash Video 7 It's important to note that interframe codecs also use intraframes. Intraframes are used as the reference frames (keyframes) for the interframes. Both the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark codecs always begin with a keyframe. Each keyframe becomes the main reference frame for the following interframes. Whenever the next frame is significantly different from the previous frame, the codec compresses a new keyframe. Comparing the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark video codecs The On2 VP6 codec is the default video codec to use when encoding FLV content for use with Flash Player 8. Us ...