Vic,

Camtasia Studio uses the On2 codec and it is double pass (unlike Adobe's). It was cheaper to upgrade my older version of Camtasia and get the On2 than to buy the On2 directly.

I used Camtasia Studio to convert five different videos to flash for 3M.

Ted

Camtasia is the best value going, IMO, for Flash output. although outputting to Flash for a notebook presentation seems like quite a stretch. I'd use a much better quality codec such as high bitrate WMV. More saturation, smoother motion.

Vic, I'm using On2 Flix Pro and it does a nice job but it is quite pricey and I had a couple of instances of it not completing the encode. I have read others with that problem too. If Camtasia now does 2-pass On2 VP then perhaps it's a better option.

Edit: The Myanmar Magic flv on my site is one I did with On2 Flix Pro. Video 400kb/s, audio 96 kb/s.

By the way FLV Player is a great free tool for locally playing back FLV files. You can also find FLV files in your browser cache and use FLV Player to show you the bit rate they used.

I think you still have to render your timeline before converting to Flash. Are there any flash encoders that work natively in Vegas?

here's a recent thread on flash
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=558755

Nick -

That Myanamar video is exactly the quality I'm seeking (and some beautiful footage doesn't hurt)...

but somewhere I'm missing the boat (bad pun)

I uploaded a Sorenson flv that looks great on my computer (direct from HD) - but I can't get it to play.

I downloaded the free FLV player that you suggested, but how do you get it to stream the file from the website?

I realize I'm in basic "duhhss-ville" here, so what am I missing?

v

Super

Vic, as far as I know the FLV Player is only for playing back flv videos that are stored locally on your machine.

Getting and flv video to stream off your site is sadly not as simple as just putting it on the page. You also need to build a player/skin for it and upload a .swf file for that and it all gets a bit heavy.

It's ages ago that I did that and I'm a bit rusty i'm afraid. I think I built the player/skin using Adobe Flash Pro.

Looking at lines 59-73 of the source of that page may help. There is another file in the same root directory called Myanmar-Magic.swf and as well as that there is another file in the same directory called AC_RunActiveContent.js which was something to do with security (see line 48 of the page source).

I think 480 px wide is a better size now that bandwidths have generally improved.

To keep things simple you could use the Brightcove Publishpod to encode the file at 480 px wide / 500kbps (I think it uses 2-pass On2 VP6 under the hood) and then embed a player. It's a very nice result. I think they have started to include pre- and/or post-roll ads but I think you can opt out of them. It's free to use and they host the file for you.

My Bunaken page features a Brightcove multi-player but you can build players with just one video if you want. I recommend it.

OK - here's what I ended up doing.

www.BrightCove.com - whoopee!

The interface drove me crazy for a while, but like everything else, once you "get it" - then it makes perfect sense.

What they offer is a FREE conversion program to transcode and upload your footage from AVI - in my case simple M2t footage cut together to show dailes to my client group (other sources alos available).

Once the footage is uploaded you create a "Title" and then a "Player". This is mounted on the BrightCove.com site - all for free, at this time.

And it's the best looking of the three systems I tried including Sorenson and On2.

FLV transcoding is lighter by far than WMV and much smoother in the color and sharpness. It just looks good.

And what easier way to show a group of execs the footage we shot, than simply sending a link?

For the CD I'm going to take Spot's advice and use WMV or MPEG on the laptops. I lost sight of the forest for the trees there for a moment. Thanks Spot, if you're looking in.

I can't show this particular footage as it's for a commercial job, but I'll try to mount something for you guys to look at soon.

Meanwhile - it's FREE - so try it out for yourselves.

v

Glad the Brightcove method is working out for you Vic.

If you're just making a single player, I seem to remember I had to play around with the width and height in the embedding code they give you for the i-frame, to get rid of the black bands top and bottom because the player was designed for 4:3 videos. This might have changed by now however.

I ended up with the following code for the single player shown on this page.

<iframe src="http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid933778870" width="486" height="322" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Note I nested that player in my own grey box so I could add the title and the note about buffering.

Don't forget www.stage6.com (DivX's site) if you want somewhere to show your movie nice and large for free. Laurence and I and others have put videos on there and found 960x540 to be a good size (1/2 your 1080 lines).

Another option is using the EasyFLV suite of programs (www.easyflv.com). Right now you can get all three programs--the Batch FLV Converter, Streaming Video, and Multitrack Streaming Video--for ONLY $49!

I've used these programs extensively and have been very impressed with their ease of use and quality. I have also been impressed by the excellent support by the developer, Aritrim Basu. Over the past couple of years, anytime I had a question I would e-mail him and get a quick reply. Now, those emails weren't because of problems (I didn't have any), but were usually for upgrade information or suggestions for additions/improvements to his software.

I haven't done a direct comparison of quality between the same footage done in these players and flash or camtasia, but I've been happy with the quality (you can see some examples on his website) and for $49 you cannot beat the deal. Even if you want to use sorenson or camtasia for the conversion instead of the EasyFLV converter, the players themselves are well worth the cost of the package.

It was a one word post from Jim H a while back, but I'd like to second Super - a very good piece of conversion freeware.

Vic,
I too am using brightcove for all my Vids. a freind of ours has me set up with an acct .
it lets me have a main page like this:

http://www.brightcove.tv/channel.jsp?channel=1184832444
or have separate players that can be embeded in pages emails etc.

like this:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1258426808

Im using On2 Flix Pro 8 (VP6 Pro encoder). Use 2-pass for highest quality.

Heres a link to Brightcove's recommended Flash converters:
http://studio.brightcove.com/library/help/encoding_software.cfm

If your using Brightcove, they have a downloadable tool called Publishpod which will upload AND do the Flix Pro 8 conversion for you (on Windows that is, on a Mac I believe its uses the Soreson encoder), so you dont necessarily need a Flash converter if your using Brightcove.

When using Publishpod to upload and convert, this will of course take more time, and there is a greater chance of the system 'hanging', although Publishpod does seem to be pretty stable. I tend to encode myself locally, and then upload the encoded FLV to Brightcove. Publishpod can also be used just to upload your FLVs.

Nick, you're site is nice, and fantastic videos, but the BrightCove video doesn't show in FireFox on my PC. I just see a white box. Works fine in IE, though. Perhaps your method of displaying the player is "IE only"?

Doug,

I can see his vids on Firefox on my PC.

Brian

No problem in Firefox on this side.

Hi Vic

Here's what I've standardized on (This could change at any time, but it's what works for me):

(1) Complete the video and render out to the desired final display size, at 24P in Vegas.

(2) Use the Flash 8 video encoder to create the .flv file. This is essentialy the same one as comes with the On2.com Flix "standard" version.

(3) Use Flash 8 to create the required .swf file and also a beginning .html page. I then copy and paste the .html code into the page I intend to display the video on. I make sure to upload the player .swf files and, of course the .flv file .

Sample http://www.DocumentaryNarration.com

I believe that if you're going use Flash to display your video, you it would be a good idea to learn a little bit about how to use Flash.

Also, be aware that many of the "discount" .flv encoders create "Flash MX" .flv files - not the "Flash 8" files which are much better in terms of bps/quality.

Nick Hope, love your underwater work! Thanks for posting it, I enjoy viewing underwater marine life.