Strongbad is da man. I used to watch it religiously but kind of lost the time to watch them. Definitely entertaining in that Southpark kind of way minus all of the bad lanaguage and sometimes more witty.

Just trying to get to the bottom of these options... So I take it the bundled encoding with Flash MX 2004 Pro is somewhat limited (i.e. "Sorenson Lite"?) and the separate Sorenson Squeeze 4 for Macromedia Flash MX gives more encoding options? They charge $119 for it so I suppose it must be adding something.

Sorry, after my last post I found my Sorenson codec answers here:

http://www.sorensonstore.com/faq.php

The next question would be whether a future Vegas version might support Flash video output???

>>>What about the actual quality vs bitrate for flv versus wmv? Anyone got examples/links?<<<

http://www.oceanstreetvideo.com/videocodectest.zip

that's with the latest sorenson encoders, it doesn't get any better than that.

wmv blows flash away, they aren't even comparable in quality... realmedia is the only thing that compares to wmv quality-wise, at least until we get h.264 fully online.

if you insist on flash for video, you must use two-pass encoding, the one-pass stuff is horrible.

the other huge downside to flash sites is how unsearchable they are... the gold standard for search engine ranking has always been plain text html with the correct keyword useage, you aren't going to improve on that with flash code.

"A combination hybrid of flash/html - sells great!"

Exactly.

This post went a little way off topic.
The usefullness of Flash here is to put videos on line reaching the most people one will be able to.
As for waiting 'til the site loads, I agree. But most of the times it's a design mistake in my opinion. If you use Flash here and there where it's effecitvely usefull , the site probably can load while you're already surfing through some pages. The common mistake is to put these animations with the "skip intro" button at start instead of just giving the info everybody's looking for in the first place (while your "chef-d'oeuvre" may be loading and accessible further via some "gallery" link). My guess is that some Flash folks are just too much craving to show their skills when people are actually looking for information.
But, again, it depends of the site; if it's an artist's site then it's kind of normal.

Forgive me for resurrecting this thread, but I wanted to ask a follow-on question: what's the fastest path from the Vegas timeline to a flash-compliant video? What tools are needed, what do you recommend, and how much do they cost?

I'd like to include flash video on my site for the reason cited in this thread: player ubiquity, and also the ability to customize the player environment to match my overall site.

I promise not to build one of those annoying song-and-dance gateway pages! Scout's honor!

Flash kills a site. We run over 300 content sites, forget anything on the front door except for compellng content and some graphics.

If you embed flash or even wmv you'll lose a ton of eyeballs, people like give me info fast

They like the info then on secondary pages they'll wait for flash or a wmv embed (which is the way to go if you ask me)

We've tried it all different ways over the years, simple front door works best

KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid

Agreed. Which is why I only plan to encode some videos for viewing on interior pages.

"Flash kills a site. We run over 300 content sites, forget anything on the front door except for compellng content and some graphics"

very smart... you can see who the people are that understand how important it is to drive traffic to their sites, from those who don't have a clue how the internet works.

use that front page url for getting into the search engines with the right keywords, don't use it for cramming eyeball candy at people.

But... isn't that what he said?


Personnaly, when I don't like the front door, I bookmark the second page and forget about the "intro" page.
So it goes : Favorites - click - bang, the page I want...

I must say I do it with every "Flash intro'd" site after viewing the intro clip once. Usually enough for me.

Then again, we've just made $140,568 in profit since Nov 2004 from my salesletter page here that features flash movies on it:

www.tradingvideos.com/success.htm

proof:
http://www.DaytradingU.com/7DVDsalesFeb9.gif

And my flash-featured sites have made hundreds of thousands in the past 4 years.

Flash video is the future of the internet, and webfomercial production is a critical skill that anyone who wants to make MONEY on the internet will be doing.

FLASH Video SELLS. (but Only use it if you want to make a lot of money)

Anyone who keeps it too simple, simply gets blown away. :)

KISAF: Keep it Simply Amazing with Flash

ken calhoun, the ceo
www.daytradinguniversity.com
www.copywritinguniversity.com

www.netfomercials.com (coming soon)

What do I know? I've made 1 Million Plus on the Net

:-)

With 300 sites to play with we can put up multiple sites with flash, embedded wmv, gif, whatever, you have a history of traffic and CONVERSION RATIOS then to analyze.

Use flash to sell inside, if you want to 'maximize' your sales.

In my youth I used to blow over 100K a year on bar tabs.

Let's see a software program I developed sold over 10 Million

I have over 1000 domain names

I have over 300 content sites

I have over 100 new books in my book publishing catalog

I have many songs in my music catalog

I have 5 movies in my film catalog

I get MILLIONS of people every year across my network of sites

When I say something it is based on my 'experience' trying it

When I used to buy ads in a major paper for one of my businesses I could tell you how much we would do that week by where my ads were in the paper, wether they were this page or that page, upper right 1/4 or bottom right 1/4. It's interesting what you can do if you know how to analyze response ratiocinations in regards to the public and ads.

I've had partners over the years that were CEO's for major fortune 500 companies and we would discuss thinks like color in ads and why certain colors are used due to how the eye reacts to color, etc.

Now, I'm all for flash and especially wmv to sell on the net. But, if you load it up on front doors you will lose many people. I know, I've done it over and over on many sites. And I've seen conversion ratios plummet.

How about this, if I put that info in a book and sell it for say 50 or 100 bucks will you believe it more?

Oh that's right, I've done a book like that, where I explain my long experience of marketing on the net.

I don't speak to hear myself talk. When I say something it's because I know from experience. When I don't know something I try to find people that know and ask hey what's this or that.

Use multi-media to sell, but limit it to front doors on web sites.

That's my advice based on experience of doing it and analyzing it.

PS Flash is OLD NEWS, it's been around for years and it looks like a cartoon half the time. Full Screen (720x480) embedded WMV looks way better in my opinion. You get to do heavy duty animation and 3D and anything you can do on video or film with it.

I looked at your site, now don't get thin skinned what I'm gonna say is based on tons of experience on line.

1. Front doors shouldn't scroll, you lose a lot of people when you scroll. Now some major sites have large pages, but the vast majority of major companies on the net all use a proven formula that they spent a ton of money analyzing. The formula is KISS, don't have front door where anyone scrolls. YOU LOSE PEOPLE. Large companies spent small fortunes studying people's reactions to web sites years ago. That's why most of the top companies in the world use short front doors. If you try to condense your front door to the viewable area on most monitors 800X you'll find out your sales ratio will increase. You want maximum sales, then keep the front door to viewable area on main screen. Some very smart people were involved in major studies of web sites years ago and that was what was found to work best.

2. Your flash use on the front door is minimal, it's unlike most 'flash sites' where they put the whole front door into some huge flash video. So kudos, you used flash wisely by having it very limited at the top.

3. You really need to lock down how the page looks, I'm at 1600x res often, right now I'm 1280x res, your page is way too wide. Have your designer lock it down with use of table with a width setting to say 800 or so.

If you do what I say and look at your sales form the site based on traffic you will see what I said maximum your sales.

I charge a lot of money for this type of advice.

Simple front doors ie. small and within viewable area of screen and limited flash, etc. are what works best. KISS works in every business.

MORE

I check out your on-line videos, congrats on trying to use videos to sell your knowledge. From a technical standpoint, the quality is very low, you need a higher stream and or a larger image. Also, your vids are stagnant with very long periods of the same graph etc. on the screen, there should be something you can use to get some action into the videos. Looking at a chart that doesn't move or fade or zoom or whatever for long periods of time isn't really a video. But if it works for you, hey, I just think you might have more sales if the video was a. a better quality and b. more lively.

Maybe some others will disagree

http://www.daytrading-university.com/rmAVclip1.ram

http://www.daytrading-university.com/rmAVclip5.ram

You've got a bunch of talented folks on this board, maybe one might want to help you a little. Maybe I'm wrong. But to me the graphics in your intro could be more 'Amazing' and your charts need to be more interactive with something, stills, stock videos, whatever.

Also, I don't use .rm or .ram anymore, .wmv is the best format if you ask me for the Net. Gates really got that right and I hate MS products.

FINAL

Your new WMV vid is 10,000 percent better than the .ram stuff showing your tapes. I didn't realize you were the video I critiqued a while back, where I kinda trashed the look of the 'actors'. Hey, you're the actor, so if you want to be the 'talent' in your vids, that's fine. Personally I'd use talent that looked more like an 'actor' than a real life person. Anyway, you used WMV which is the way to go and the effects are 'amazing' in your new work. We did a site once for a person selling this type of info on eBay. Nice front door we made him, the information was a joke (a 20 or 30 page ebook badly formatted), but people bought it. He says no one asked for their money back. Anyway, nice WMV and if you slicked up the examples of the tapes you'll sell a lot more. IMHO

Yep - Force feed 'em.
That's the way to win an audience.

I hate Flash too. If you use it, I tend to hate you by association.

>Then again, we've just made $140,568 in profit since Nov 2004 from my salesletter page here that features flash movies on it:

>www.tradingvideos.com/success.htm

Congradulations for your monitary sucess but I think your example is disgusting.
I checked it out on my DSL connection. The immediate image loaded quickly, but the total page took several minutes to load on my high speed link. I have no idea what I was waiting for, nor do I care. Whatever it was, if I was still on dialup it would have taken all afternoon to load. Hopefully I could have killed it without hanging up.

"Nice page." If you are proud of that (beyond the money you say it made) you are an idiot.

That's my evaluation. YMMV

>Then again, we've just made $140,568 in profit since Nov 2004 from my salesletter page here that features flash movies on it:

>www.tradingvideos.com/success.htm

Actually having reviewed your crap message, I now wonder why you feel the need to go to the effort to sell it? You may have made money telling others the secret, but if the secret actually worked, wouldn't it make more sense just to do the day trading yourself and make money without the excess competition from selling your guaranteed methods? You could have saved the whole investment in learning video and how to post fantastic messages on the internet.

To summarize...
1) I don't like your web page structure and presentation
2) I think what you are selling is crap
3) Apparently I have more brains than your numerous customers

Went back and read:
>>
With 300 sites to play with we can put up multiple sites with flash, embedded wmv, gif, whatever, you have a history of traffic and CONVERSION RATIOS then to analyze.

Use flash to sell inside, if you want to 'maximize' your sales.

In my youth I used to blow over 100K a year on bar tabs.

Let's see a software program I developed sold over 10 Million

I have over 1000 domain names

I have over 300 content sites

I have over 100 new books in my book publishing catalog

I have many songs in my music catalog

I have 5 movies in my film catalog

I get MILLIONS of people every year across my network of sites

When I say something it is based on my 'experience' trying it
<<

That is impressive. Congradulations on your success. Experience tells me most of it was hard work, but some was coincidence and being aware in the right place at the right time.

You really think the day trading site is ok? Could be, but I've nerver had to be a whore.

If Ken's page is working for his market, great!

I don't like slow loading sites or the one's that try to hi-jack your browser or with poor graphics design, but RexA's conclusion " you are an idiot" over the top and has little value.

Wow, did this thread ever turn hateful in a hurry.

I won't comment on the flame fest, but going back to the original topic... guns don't kill people, people kill people. Same for webs sites, Flash doesn't kill a web site, designers do. Flash is a great tool for content delivery if used properly.

If you're a designer who forces a user to wait for a flash applet to load before giving a phone number, then you're not a good web designer no matter how you make it look. Even if you want a Flash heavy site, you should give users on dialup other options for accessing the information they want or need.

On the other hand, if you have a page giving details about a movie, show, video, etc. you want to show people, and you have a link "Click here to watch the video online", and the link takes you to another page, or even opens a small window with nothing but the Flash video in it, it makes for a great way to deliver your video without forcing people to download anything if they don't want to.

What Flash gives you is a nice cross-platform method of distributing your video to Windows Mac, Linux, even PDA's, that 90% of the internet can watch. You won't get that kind of accessibility using any other method of delivering video on your web site.

To hate Flash is no different than hating your web browser because some sites play MIDI files as soon as you load the page. It's not the technology's fault, it's the designer. Flash definitely has it's place on the web, but it's up to the designers to know what that place is... and isn't.

Just my two cents worth,
Zon

I'll agree with this post. Very well put!
JImmy