We typically render to avi first and then batch render to FLV in Flix Pro. I'm not sure if that's any more efficient than what you're proposing but it works well.

You can do the renders to avi with several instances of Vegas running for the first step. That's how we do it anyway.

Mike

Have you been able to frameserve to Super? Did it work?

If you need to do multiple renders to avi in Vegas there are batch render scripts you can use. Search this board or the scripting board for "batch render" and you'll find the commercial scriptst that are available. They are more polished than the default batch render script.

If you have multiple projects to render using the default batch render script in Vegas, I think the workflow would be create a project and then import all your veg files into it as nested vegs. Then create a region for each nested veg and select the Render Regions option in the script.

Also, SCS should add FLV rendering to Vegas. This should be part of 8.0c. It's crazy at this point, not to support this.

bk, yes - I have been able to frameserve to Super which then does the conversion to FLV. Thanks for your other tips - the nested vegs may be a good way to go. I'm also going to do some testing with frameserving multiple instances when I get some time.

I couldn't agree more about SCS needing to add ability to render to FLV - it really surprises me that it isn't there yet.

Jerry

I have a horrible feeling that we will never get this.

In the days when Macromedia (the company behind Flash) was an independent entity it might have been possible. But now that Flash is owned and operated by Adobe (who bought Macromedia at the end of 2005) I suspect that they are refusing to license the technology to any of their competitors (like SCS). If I'm right, we will always need to use an external application to convert to FLV from the formats that Vegas can render to.

Mark

It isn't so bad. Flash will now work with AVC video and in time I'm sure it will replace flv since it is in fact better. In time we'll all have some nice AVC templates to render to that will embed in web pages as Flash video just fine.

Good point.

Out of interest, has anyone yet tried creating a template for AVC suitable for playback with the Flash 9 player?

I'll have a go myself when I get a spare minute but it would be interesting to know what success (or otherwise) other people have had trying to do this.

Mark

What is Super???

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt

"Flash will now work with AVC video and in time I'm sure it will replace flv since it is in fact better."

FLV is a container, much like AVI is just a container. Most of the current FLV files contain video which has been compressed with the "On2 VP6" codec. VP6 actually works quite well and doesn't require as much computer horsepower to decode as h.264 (MP4). Nevertheless, it's all heading toward h.264.

"What is Super"

Super stands for "Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer." It's a very odd piece of freeware that can encode/transcode just about any video format to any other format. It's just a GUI front end for a collection of open source video software. Super isn't particularly simple, nor does it produce the highest quality encoding that I've ever seen. Nevertheless, it's free and does a lot. Here's the link:

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

You must wade through miles of pages before you can finally find the well-hidden download link. You might also want to read some of the comments at Videohelp.com about Super:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/SUPER

Well I've just had a quick go at this and I'm pleased to find that the Flash 9 player will play .MP4 files encoded from Vegas using either the MainConcept or the Sony AVC encoders.

I haven't tried anything fancy yet, just tried a 320x240 render using the Default template for the Sony AVC encoder or the Apple iPod 320x240 template for the MainConcept AVC/AAC encoder, and found they both work just fine using the flowplayer.swf method of embedding Flash video in a webpage.

Mark

Mark I've done a mountain of work on this in recent weeks with all sorts of codecs, sizes and bitrates.

I had a thread here comparing different formats at 960x540.

In summary the two H.264 options in Vegas are very fast to encode but really not very good quality. I'm now using the free, open source x264 codec to do it instead inside MeGUI, but it's a complicated workflow and if you want to offer a download link as well as the Flash then many of the features that enhance the quality have to be dumbed down for playback compatibility with various software.

Here are a couple of x264 test pages at 512x288, 400kbps: with B-frames and without B-frames. There is some nice version-checking embedding code on those pages if you check the source, but note that you will need SWFObject 2.0 on your server to use it. The Flash player is from here.

Also note that if you embed a Vegas-rendered H.264 file in Flash it will buffer the full 100% before playing. It's to do with the order of moov and mdat atoms or something in the file. There are ways to fix it but Sony badly need to address that.

Penetration of AVC-compatible Flash Players is already high and increasing all the time, and I would MUCH rather see an improved H.264 codec (such as a recent MainConcept one) in the next Vegas than any sort of FLV codec.

So what's the procedure for wrapping an AVC file into FLV?

btw Nick - The links provided to your website are showing up as not able to be found in Firefox.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt

...now that Flash is owned and operated by Adobe (who bought Macromedia at the end of 2005) I suspect that they are refusing to license the technology to any of their competitors (like SCS).

Certainly not.

Adobe will do anything and everything necessary to stave off Silverlight, Microsoft's attempt to take over the Flash market.

Ah, thanks for that Nick, paticularly the YAMB trick.

Mark

> So what's the procedure for wrapping an AVC file into FLV?

There is no wrapping necessary - you just render your video to a .MP4 and then include the reference to it in the HTML of your page in exactly the same way as you would do with a .FLV.

E.g. using the simple FlowPlayer method that I use (Nick uses a more sophisticated player but the principle is the same) the code block could be:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="FlowPlayer.swf"

	width="320" height="262" id="FlowPlayer">

	<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />

	<param name="movie" value="FlowPlayer.swf" />



	<param name="quality" value="high" />

	<param name="scale" value="noScale" />

	<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />

	<param name="flashvars" value="config={videoFile: 'Untitled2.mp4'}" />

</object>

Mark