Some Random Dude

I’m really glad that I posted the movie player because it has really come to show me that Flash on the web can be VERY different than Flash previewed in its own application. I have noticed an absolute plethora of bugs and strange occruances with the player just by playing with it even so often. I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed any problems with the Flash video player I shown March 20th. Please drop me a comment if you have.

Well, here’s a sampler of a very basic build of the video player. At this point, the playlist is populated by an XML datasheet which makes things much nicer. It resizes without a hitch (still need to test resizing to different aspect ratios) and a buffer progress bar allows you to see how far the download is. Still, this baby has a LONG way to go. Stupid little quirks like the visible moving of some of the components isn’t too cool and some really basic features that will keep just about anyone from wanting to use this tool (mute, volume control, auto-play toggle, loop toggle, etc) need to be put in. Nonetheless, it definately can’t be mistaken for anything other than a movie player now. I’d say a few more heavy days of work and it should be done.

I thought it would be fun to throw a lot of different videos on here for a test but I was having FLV encoding problems so I left it to only two videos that are the definition of dichotomy. Have fun.

Here’s a list of both completed and incomplete features:

• XML-driven playlist – COMPLETED
• Customized play-control interface (playlist, pause, play, etc.) – COMPLETED
• Custom-styled Flash Components
• Hi/Lo Res toggle capabilities – SCRATCHED (not neccesary)
• Frame re-sizing feature – COMPLETED
• Better buffer functionality
• Volume controls
• Auto-play, loop toggle
• General polishing

By the way, With Teeth is coming out May 3rd. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this excited about an albumn release. This is definately an artist worth supporting.

Funny how the big problems seem to be the easiest to miss…

All this time I have been developing this media player without thinking about a very large issue: Flexibility of video formats. Flash makes it almost too easy to deliver progressive download video playback with a flurry of options to the developer if using the FLV video format. Because of this, it was obvious to me to go this route since it was so easy to develop. The problem is, folks with Quicktime, DivX or (for reasons unknown) WMV formats will be up a smelly creek without a paddle.

I have to say this doesn’t bother me too much – the fact that the novice will be deterred from using this product once I release it isn’t making me lose too much sleep. Just thinking of this cool little player being used for documenting the silly escapades of some crackpot’s cat ‘Snoockums’ or having some 14-year-old girl showcase the latest Britney Aguilera music video makes me more than a little queasy. I still would like this player to be as flexible as possible so people don’t have to go through a ton of extra work to make their videos work with this player. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if that’s going to happen. I think I’m going to have to stick to the FLV format and do my best to steer as many people to some tools that will aid in the process.

Since I really want to make my slideshow, video player and mp3 player for more of the design/arts community, I’m hoping a significant portion of the people using this will have Flash MX 2004 Pro. Really, if you use Flash at all and you’ve got some cash to burn, it’s worth every last penny. The nice thing is, with Flash MX 2004 and the 7.2 updater, you’re set and you can create FLV’s without a hitch.

Things get a little sticky if you’re not an owner of Flash, but far from impossible. For those of you that have the 20-inch gold rims on your Escalade there’s Sorenson Squeeze. From my short stint of using it, the application seems to do a damn fine job encoding your video to the FLV format. I’m not sure if it adds the video meta-data so make sure to continue reading below for the fix.

For those of you with the plastic K-Mart clearance rims, there’s Riva Encoder. The price is set at a very low $0 and with a little finesse and patience, you can get good results. It seems to have some very picky tastes in terms of the video and audio encoders used on the original file, but just stick to the well known ones and you should be fine. In addition, the video meta-data (duration, encoding details, etc.) that the 7.2 updated Flash MX 2004 adds automatically is completely omitted and you’ll need to go through a second step to have it added.

Luckily, someone has made the process of adding FLV meta-data very easy for us. I want to personally thank the chap who released the FLV MetaData Injector which saved me quite a few Jacksons for this project. Without the video meta-data, certain functions like the progress bar will not function at all so it’s fairly important to go through the process of adding it.

This entry has turned out to be less of a solution to a problem and more of a work-around. I would love to figure out a way to automate this but I’m all but sure I’m not smart enough to take that on.

More updates and a possible example of the video player tonight.