Flash CS3 9.0.2 update with FLVPlayback that uses H.264 Video

Released this week, the new Flash CS3 Professional Update (to version 9.0.2) includes updates to the FLVPlayback component to support H.264 video, and provides support for Flash Lite 3 Update inFlash CS3 Professional, and all Debug and Release versions of this new Adobe Flash Player.

So here is my little tutorial on using the new FLVPlayback Component with H.264 video. This assumes that you downloaded the updates mentioned above (available at http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/downloads.html if your Adobe Updater does not notify you automatically)

1. Launch Flash CS3 Professional. Choose New Flash AS3 document from the Start Page.

2. Create two new layers in the Timeline Panel. Call the top layer actions and call the bottom layer flvPlayBack.

3. Open the Components Panel (Window > Components). Drag and drop an instance of the new FLVPlayback Component.

4. Name your FLVPlayback Component in the Properties Panel/Inspector. I called it myFLVPlayback for simplicity. Set the height and width of the component to an appropriate percentage size based on your video. For example, 1080P means (roughly) 1080 wide by 1920 high. I used a percentage value (75) of the original size to fit reasonably on the screen.

5. Grab a sample video that is H.264 encoded. I used a sample from the movie Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest that supports 1080p.

The file was a whopping 126,807 KB (just to say I can do it).

Flash CS3 might pop up an error dialog box indicating that it cannot import the file, but you can ignore it (unless there is an encoding issue with the video, of course).

6. Select Frame 1 of the actions layer, and launch the Actions Panel (Window > Actions).


7. Save your Flash authoring file with a straight-forward filename, like FLVPlayback_H264_test.fla.

8. To test your movie, simply preview it in Flash CS3 (ctrl-enter for windows, cmd-enter for Macs).


9. Voila! Publish Preview your movie (File > Publish Preview > Default (HTML) )


Bonus...Play around with the fullScreenSkin.swf as well to test full screen capability!

And more in-between posts...Blaze DS shows up, an open-source Flex Data Service!

As an instructor of Flex, I have often taught students who work at organizations who use Flex, but not Flex Data Services (recently rebranded as Flex Live Cycle Data Services -really, they should have a shorter name for it). The reason they do not use Flex Data Services is usually a) price and b) the proprietary nature of the server.

Well it seems both points have now been addressed.

Just over the weekend, Adobe released BlazeDS, and according to the website, the description reads as follows:

"BlazeDS is the server-based Java remoting and web messaging technology that enables developers to easily connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real-time to Adobe® Flex™ and Adobe AIR™ applications for more responsive rich Internet application (RIA) experiences."

Furthermore, it appears to now have open source and licensing origins...

"Adobe is announcing its plans to contribute the proven BlazeDS technologies to the community under the LGPL v3. BlazeDS gives the rapidly growing Adobe developer community free access to the powerful remoting and messaging technologies developed by Adobe.

Concurrent with this prerelease of BlazeDS, Adobe is publishing the AMF binary data protocol specification, on which the BlazeDS remoting implementation is based, and is committed to partnering with the community to make this protocol available for every major server platform. The source code will be available for download early 2008. Please read the FAQ for further details on BlazeDS and Adobe’s open source plans."

Check it out at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/blazeds/ .

So... in between Posts, BRIO shows up.

When I started working with New Toronto Group I did a lot of exploration into Macromedia Breeze. Since then, it has been rebranded and updated as Adobe Connect, and now a new version of Connect Professional is coming out, code-named "Brio" (I recall it under a different name, but perhaps a fuzzy italian soda pop is more of an exciting code word). Anyway, it looks like the interface is a lot simpler than it used to be, and it appears to be very Flex / Flash 9 supported (reports of AS 3 - type errors have been showing up). Alas, Brio still has firewall negotiation issues that I would like to see resolved (see above image). Check out in any case - I'll have my meeting room launched after 8:00 pm EST for those interested in seeing me play around with the Adobe Connect API.

You can check out Brio at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/brio/