Using video in an application

Before you import video into Flash, consider what video quality you need, what video format to use with the FLA file, and how to download it. When you import video into a FLA file (called embedded video), it increases the size of the SWF file that you publish. This video starts progressively downloading to the user’s computer whether or not they view the video.

You can also progressively download or stream the video at runtime from an external Flash Video (FLV) file on your server. When it starts downloading depends on how you structure your application.

You can display external FLV video using a component or a video object. A component makes developing applications with FLV video easy, because the video controls are prebuilt, and you only need to specify an FLV file path to play the content. To keep your SWF file as small as possible, display video in a video object and create your own assets and code to control the video. Also consider using the FLVPlayback component in Adobe® Flash® CS3 Professional, which has a smaller file size than Media components (Flash MX Professional 2004 and later).

It is a good idea to give users some control (such as the ability to stop, pause, play, and resume the video, and control volume) over the video in a SWF file.

To gain certain kinds of flexibility over your video, such as manipulating the video with animation, or syncing various parts of it with the timeline, embed the video in the SWF file rather than loading it using ActionScript or one of the Media components.

For more control over a video instance than the Video class allows, place video inside a movie clip instance. The video’s timeline plays independently from a Flash timeline, and you can place the content inside a movie clip to control timelines. You do not have to extend your main Timeline by many frames to accommodate for the video, which can make working with your FLA file difficult.