This guide will help you to convert your video to Flash FLV Video and also how to add / embed it to your homepage. Google Video and Youtube are also using Flash Video but you might not want to use them for your video clips and by converting the clips yourself you can getter better quality. Remember that sharing video on your homepage requires a lot of homepage bandwidth.
Converting to flash flv video
Convert the video to flash flv with Riva FLV Encoder or Super or On2 Flix or Flash Professional.
Riva FLV Encoder and Super are free and supports most video input formats. On2 and Flash also supports several video input formats and they also support the new flv4/on2 vp6 codec and that helps you create better looking video.
Convert with Riva FLV Encoder
Choose your video source.
Set the video Movie size/resolution, for example 320x240. If you use higher size and your source is interlaced click deinterlace.
Set the Framerate, use same as your video source, for example 25fps.
Set the Bitrate, higher bitrates means better quality but bigger file size, for example 360. You can use a bitrate calculator to calculate the exact output file size.
Set the Audio setttings, audio bitrate 56 kbps, 22khz and mono or stereo.
Set the Start offset and duration if you want to cut out a clip from video. Like start at 120 sec in to the video and encode 120 seconds.
Set the Output folder.
Encode! It will take some time. Check the output folder and a .flv file should be created, if not it doesn't work. You can then try encode with SUPER instead. See below
Click Preview to view the video.
Convert with SUPER
Right click in the super window and deselect Stay on top of all.
Right click and specify the Output Folder destination.
Select the Output container and choose flv or swf.
Set the Video Size. If you use higher size than 320x240 and your source interlaced click on Other Opt and select Deinterlace.
Set the Frame Rate
Set the Bitrate, higher bitrates means better quality but bigger file size, for example 480. You can use a bitrate calculator to calculate the exact output file size.
Set the Audio settings.
Right click to add your file(s).
If you want a custom watermark click on the O to the right of "Use DirectShow". A "me :-)" logo is enabled by default just select disabled to turn it off.
Click Encode and select FLV.
It should now say ENCODING FILE. Check also the output folder.
Adding the FLV Video to your homepage
You need a flash video player together with your FLV player. Download Flash Video Player. It includes a free Flash Video Player for your FLV video.
Upload the flvplayer.swf file that comes with Flash Video Player to your server
Upload your .flv video file to your server
Add the following html code to your page:
Replace myvideofile.flv with your flv filename
Replace http://www.myhomepage.com/ with your address.
Replace the width and height with your flv width and height.
Add &autostart=1 to the video file if you want it to autoplay, like
I got it working and it was easy with your help here thanks!
Got one question though, is there a way i can edit the code so the player starts automatically once a visitor clicks into the site that has the player embeded on it?
_________________ HP m7760n, Vista Premium w/ media center, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz, 2 Gig Ram DDR2, Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT, 2- 250 GB wd 7200 rpm, Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600 NTSC/ATSC.
What about adding a button on the flash player so when you click it, it will pop up a new window without browser navigation so you can optionally view the video in full screen?
_________________
Thanks for the info on this Baldrick. Coincidentally I'm using one of the plugins listed on his page, the AllVideos mambot for Joomla. I read through the readme about the fullscreen flashvars:
Quote:
FULLSCREEN FLASHVARS
* fullscreenpage (url): The players automatically show a fullscreen button if a user has installed a flashplayer capable of true fullscreen (from 9.0.2. With this flashvar, you can also present a sort-of fullscreen for users who have an older version of the Flash plugin. A click on the fullscreen button will jump to the HTML page you specified here. In this HTML page, you can present a full-browser-screen version of the flvplayer/mediaplayer (just like in the download's example).
* fsreturnpage (url): To let the browser know what page to jump to when somebody wants to close the semi-fullscreen, you can set the "normal" page as the fsreturnpage flashvar. It will be passed through to the fullscreen page with a flashcookie.
* fullscreenmode (true,false): Set this flashvar to true for embedding of the player in the fullscreen page. The player will then get the "file","image","id" and "fsreturnpage" flashvars from a cookie and will present the "normal screen" button in the playlist, instead of the "full screen" button.
* showfsbutton (true,false): Set this flashvar to false to hide the fullscreenbutton, even if flash9 is detected.
And so I tried changing the code like this and adding the showfsbutton var since I just want it to be in fullscreen and not actually create a seperate url for the fullscreen video:
Code:
<p id="player1"><a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">Get the Flash Player</a> to see this player.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
var FO = { movie:"flvplayer.swf",width:"300",height:"170",majorversion:"7",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF",allowfullscreen:"true",
flashvars:"showfsbutton=true" };
UFO.create( FO, "player1");
</script>
However, no fullscreen button appears. What am I missing?
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Is there a way to keep the "fla.tmp" files? I can see it in my Temp folder, but get automatically deleted when the browser is closed. I would like to view them "offline". Something I can do?
Thanks!
LD
. With this flashvar, you can also present a sort-of fullscreen for users who have an older version of the Flash plugin. A click on the fullscreen button will jump to the HTML page you specified here. In this HTML page, you can present a full-browser-screen version of the flvplayer/mediaplayer (just like in the download's example).
