I didn't see anything there on first glance....

Has anyone successfully created a SWF file from Movie Studio, and used it on a webpage? If so, can you point me to the web page and I will see if I get the same problem....

I have no problems playing flash files anywhere else I have encountered them - only the files created with Movie Studio. I render the complete project, and not a loop as I am already aware of that problem.

I created a .swf file from a small .avi. When I clicked on "Make Movie" I selected the "Create an HTML page that includes it" option. I thenk selected .swf format on the next screen.

The html page played the .swf file just fine on my machine. I examined the source and here is the pertinent html code that displays and plays the video:

<OBJECT
classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"
WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="260" id="myMovieName">

<PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="test.swf">
<PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high>
<PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FFFFFF>

<EMBED src="test.swf"
quality=high
bgcolor=#FFFFFF
WIDTH="720"
HEIGHT="555"
NAME="myTestMovie.swf"
ALIGN=""
TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>


Hope this is helful.

Thanks dand9959 -

The plot thickens.... The MS project was a few images and text. Transitions were limited to zoom and fade. The entire clip is 9 seconds long.

If I "create HTML page..." directly from the project with the above events, I encounter the problem I originally described.

However, if I render to AVI, then open a new project, insert the AVI and THEN render to HTML/SWF, it plays back without hanging up my computer!

Not sure if this is related or not, but I cannot make the SWF play over and over as a loop, even though that checkbox is checked, and the HTML code verifies that the loop setting is -1 (loop=yes I presume).

So, if I can make this thing loop, I guess I'm in business, although, even at the highest setting, the SWF resolution is pretty poor....

Well, this site's Vegas forums are of no help - It does not appear that Vegas outputs to SWF.

SO, what I have discovered is that 1) I cannot create a SWF file directly from a MS project containing text, images, etc - I must first render an AVI, start a new project using that avi, then render a SWF file.... *VERY* limited quality output, but it does work; and 2) no matter what I do, I cannot get the rendered SWF file to play in a loop, even with that option selected in Internet Explorer...

Question: Does anyone know for sure that it is actually possible to get looped playback from a SWF file created in Screenblast MS?

It seems I have an answer to the lack of looping... this comes from a moderator at wildform. Below are 3 separate responses I received - posted VERY quickly by the wildform moderator, which I really appreciated.

"There is a stop action on the last frame. If you want to add a loop action to a .swf you can check out our software Linx which imports any .swf and automatically adds many .swf actions and functions, such as looping, links, preloaders, etc. For more information: www.wildform.com/linx.

I find the decision to add a stop action unfortunate. This appears to be the exact opposite of what macromedia does. According to the macromedia site:

"The Macromedia Flash Player is designed to continuously loop a Flash movie. As soon as the last frame has finished playing, the Player starts again at the first frame. This is a feature of Flash, based on developers' requests."

The macromedia approach makes perfect sense since their plug-in player has a variable called "loop" that can be set to enable, or disable, a looping swf. It cannot, however, be used to make a loop from a swf that has been created with a stop action, as is the case with the wildform codec.

So, the long and the short of it is that you can use MS to create flash files, but you cannot use them on web pages or anywhere else where you would want it to loop - which is about the only reason I would want to use one over another format, such as quicktime, or wmv.... I can also get significantly better quality out of those other formats. Perhaps Sony will include a wildform codec in the future that has some degree of control, such as an option to loop, and perhaps, higher quality output.

Sorry for the long message, but this issue was frustrating me....

I thought the Wildform forums would be helpful. Sorry you didn't get the answer you wanted though. I guess the only thing you can do at this point is submit a product suggestion to Sony:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/support/productsuggestion.asp

If flash is really important to you, you might want to invest in the full version of Flash. The codec they use (Sorenson Spark I think) is much better than whatever Wildform uses. A cheaper alternative is just to use Sorenson's standalone Flash encoder.

Sorenson Squeeze 3.5 for Macromedia Flash MX (Windows) - http://www.sorenson.com/content.php?cats=2/4&nav=2

At this point, flash is not important enough to justify the expense of any of those packages. When I was first considering the purchase of Screenblast MS, a few additional features, such as the ability to output to flash, were enough to push me over the edge - I figured the ability to occasionally do it would mean one less piece of software to purchase.

That single decision - to put a stop action in the last keyframe - renders the flash output nearly useless to me.

Thanks again for the reference to their forums. The moderator responding to my questions was very helpful.

Regarding the poor quality...I think that MS outputs the html so that the display window for the flash object is 720x480, or thereabouts...which is way too big. Try going into the html code and make the display window size much smaller.

Its not the HTML code - actually, if you build an HTML page, it defaults to the same size as the rendered output... its when you try to open the SWF file with explorer (no HTML page) that it blows it up.

Again, I was just posting my observations - there really was little insight on this forum about flash - perhaps my postings will shed some light on the matter for others down the road.... and HOPEFULLY, Sony will wake up and realize that the codec they have requested from Wildform could use a user selectable option or two! :o)