"I originally forwarded a mp4 file using h.264 codec, but this version of flash did not recognise this file."

The webmaster needs to upgrade his Flash.

Thanks Rob,
I'll take your advice - I'll upload a few short samples, then put Data DVD in the post to him,
Cheers
Paige

Thanks for your comment -
so if I come across a similar situation, and the flash software is current, am I correct to assume a h.264 mp4 file would be fine?
Thanks
Paige

Not just fine, but preferable (imo).
Flash 10 delivers H264 directly, without re-encoding to another format.

Hi again
Thought the uncompressed avi was the answer (and sample worked for the web guy) but my calculations were wrong - it's a whopping 6.5mb - too big for delivery.
I'll need to compress - but I'm really unfamiliar with the avi codecs. Do you think the cinepak codec would be OK?
Many thanks
Paige

Probably would work, give it a try.

One option would be to get a free codec that both of you can install. For example, Huffyuv is free and offers good quality. It ought to at least get that 6GB file down to a size that fits onto a Data DVD.

Try http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/index.html

There are several other good free codecs out there that you could use. Lagarith is popular.
http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html

You could provide the codec installers to your client to make life easier.

I have Flash CS3 which has about the same video encoding ability as Flash 8. I just tried a huffyuv avi file ind had no trouble encoding it to VP6.

Your client may have no interest in upgrading to CS4 but he/she might want to look into using h.264 anyway. I *think* you can still get CS3 to deal with it because it can target versions of the Flash player that accept it. And h.264 usually looks good for its file size.

Regardless, your job is just to deliver what they ask for so I wouldn't spend a lot of time telling them that they could be using your MP4 file if they just applied themselves a little. They're the client.

Rob

Cinepak, although dated, is available on almost every Windows and Mac box in the world. That is why I agreed it is worth a try. Of course there are better options, but then paige is dealing with a webmaster who has a Flash version that is well over four years old.

Huffy and Lagarith are not commonly available on either platform and would require a separate codec download and install by both parties.

Thanks Rob & musicvid
I've sent him through a sample using the cinepak codec (looks OK - but sooo slow to render).

I'm going to download both the avi codecs you suggested Rob, it's good to have and know of the best and most current to use.

I'd love to tell the web guy to upgrade to Flash 10, or something that handles h264 files, It's difficult enough keeping up with technology and current 'standards' - let alone having to work out how to use outdated video tools!...but in saying that, I haven't upgraded to vp9 yet...

I'll let you know the outcome.
Thank you so much
Paige

encode to mp4 in vegas, use mp4faststart to allow progressive download, and embed the jw player on a web page to play it back.

i put together a little lesson. disregard the cineform part, you don't need it.

www.wacru.wa-music.com/HDV4Web.htm

then explain it to the clueless webmaster. cs3 is garbage, cs4 is worse, flash 8 is outdated and on2 is so last year. mp4/h264 gives you quality as good or better and flash will play it just fine without lengthy encodes.

paige,

Another option that came to mind out of the murky depths of the past, would be to encode h.263 as a .mov file. This can be done in Vegas.

h.263 is one common format used for FLV1 files, and it "might" transcode without a lengthy render in Flash 8. Again, worth a try, and some of those older h.263 videos weren't terribly bad.

Since your webmaster will be rendering to something like h.263, Sorenson, or On2 VP6 anyway, going through the drill of downloading and installing lossless AVI codecs on both machines, encoding and recoding, seems a bit counterintuitive. I don't see much to be gained by lossless delivery for a "very" lossy product.

As for teaching old webmasters new tricks, I do Perl but not PHP and only a little JavaScript, I do HTML but only a little CSS, I do RSS but only a bit of Ajax, and my web sites look like dinosaurs from the 20th century, which they are. I have learned to embed H264 with JWPlayer, however.
;?)

Musicvid, all true, and I tried to make it clear that either of those would require installing a codec. Cinepak, on the other hand, is standard on all windows systems and might very well be one of the simplest choices to deliver. Really the only reason I was steering away from it is ignorance -- I don't know anything about Cinepak but my impression is that the quality isn't great.

My guess is that if Paige does a set of 10 second renders in several codecs Cinepak will be a runner up, but the prospect of asking this client to install a codec might very well be a non-starter.

Rob

The web guy may have no real reason to upgrade to flash 10 and I don't think that's the answer unless you're paying him. Maybe you are.

We're still on Flash 9 where I work and we don't have a compelling reason to go to Flash10. And I wouldn't really say that flash 8 is outdated, it just doesn't handle actionscript3, which can be a big deal sometimes.

I just tried a little cinepak render at 100% quality. It's not too kind to text but less destructive than a DV avi. It's probably better than DV for your purposes. Huffy looks really good in comparison, though. Remember that he's going to do another run of compression on it.

Rob

Rob, you are right in that Cinepak pretty much s*cks. I was trying to keep it a KISS approach for her webmaster, who probably pretty much reflects my aging skills. If it were me, and I was a professional web designer, H264 integration alone would provide plenty of motivation to upgrade to version 10 if there was a lot of Flash content on my sites. My own tests using HD source footage have been astounding.

My afterthought of providing h.263 .mov files may or may not work, but if it does may give them an uncluttered approach.
Although more effort is involved, I'm pretty sure installing Huffy on both machines would work, as long as she can deliver an appropriate SAR (that Huffy will accept) to maintain 1.0 PAR. I wasn't feeling too well last night, so apologies if my post sounded a bit pointed.
;?)

No prob.

I agree with keeping it simple and cinepak fits the description. There are also a couple of stock quicktime codecs that would look good but the basic goal would be to give the customer what they asked for and not tell them they need to install codec or upgrade to the most current version of Flash.

We both know that Flash does a lot more than play video. If video is what drives you then Flash 10 is attractive, otherwise 8 or 9 is perfectly serviceable.

Unfortunately there are just way too many choices for any of this to ever be really simple.

Rob

Thanks so much for your help,

The cinepak codec worked fine for him on the sample file, so I've today sent the webmaster the complete file.
Hopefully it wll be up and running tomorrow.

Would be interesting to see if a mov file h263 would have worked, but I'm just happy now that's it's done.

If you're interested I can post the url when it's up.
Thanks again for all your help,
Paige