Movies into Flash

[chechu]

Movies are too heavy to place on the web like .mwv
How can I lower the kB, so they are easy to view ? Do they have to be transformed into Flash ? How does that work ?

[mtran]

If you want to embed video in flash, you probably need to convert your video into flash video [.FLV file].

Flash 8 can do it very good. Just go to file/ import and it'll guide you through including how big you want your movie to be. If you have MX2004, you may need to download an extra plug-in called video exporter or video coder or something like that from Adobe. MX doesn't support movie.

[tech_support]

How can I lower the kB, so they are easy to view ?

Use a video compression software.

Do they have to be transformed into Flash ?

No.

How does that work ?

As mtran said, you need to embed the video into Flash.

[djr33]

Flash isn't gonna fix anything.

Flash will just make the user ALSO need the flash plugin, not make download times faster.

You can recompress without the use of flash and just have another, smaller QT movie.

The elements that make up file size are:
--length of the clip
--dimensions of the clip
--compression.... = quality
--codec (compressor/decompressor)*

*The codec is the most important here. If you use a codec that does a really good job of compressing, then you will have a lower file size and better image than using a worse codec. However, the tradeoff is usually compatibility. The better codecs are usually newer, or perhaps not compatible with all systems. (for example, DivX is fairly compatible now and pretty good at compression/quality, but it used to be very hard to make work on any system other than windows. This isn't QT though, and I'd prefer a QT codec anyway, just giving an example.)
I'd suggest Sorenson3 as a VERY compatible codec and good size to quality ratio.
Several are better, like mpeg4, but they are less compatible.
It's a tradeoff...



Note: The reason that flash movies are generally so small is that they use vector graphics. Vector graphics are NOT pixels. They are actually code describing how the program should draw the image. They specific shapes and angles and sizes etc., and they have some advantages to bitmap (pixel) graphics, as well as some disadvantages:
Good:
They are usually smaller as they are code, not pixel-by-pixel space intensive data.
They can be enlarged infinitely with NO quality loss (except detail). Even zoomed WAY in, a curve will still be a curve, not blocky.
They are easily manipulated in flash (for example), and are easy to animate. It's more like working with objects than just pixels.
Bad:
Since each aspect of the image must be a seperate piece described in code, vector graphics are never as detailed/accurate as pixels would be.
Likewise, bitmap graphics cannot be transformed into vector graphics (except by doing so manually, which would be a LOT of work) since they are made up of little dots of color and detail that represent an image as a whole, not individual, seperate parts.

Due to this, a QT movie in flash is just that.... flash playing a QT movie. In fact, embedding it will just add the additional data of the flash file itself and the instructions to play the file in ADDITION to the original size of the QT movie, which to get the same quality, would be the same size.
And, if you're up for some quality loss, then you can do this, as I said above, without flash, in a new, compressed QT movie.


EDIT: Note: I just said QT... quicktime. I thought you were talking about that as that's what I know about embedding into flash. I don't even know if flash supports .wmv files, though you can convert (look for a video editor to do this, such as the free program "zwei-stein" available from the company Thugs at Bay [no clue about the strange name]).
Anyway, all the information above applies to any format of video.
Note that .wmv is especially bad because linux and mac users don't, by default, have windows media player, and it can be a pain to install it.
QT is usually the most compatible. DivX as I mentioned above is becoming popular and reasonably compatible as well.
If you must use a windows format, then use AVI which is very similar to WMV, but a bit more compatible...

[chechu]

So I need special software to lower the weight of a movie ? Where can I find it online ? Free trials ?

[BLiZZaRD]

Check out this thread for links and more info.

[chechu]

How can I place a .mwv without the border or toolbar ? So just the movie itself ?

[BLiZZaRD]

Dunno. mwv is not FLV. You can ask that in the "other" thread, someone might know.

[djr33]

When embedding the file, you usually are stuck with whatever the player offers.
I know what with Quicktime, setting a height of [height of the movie]+16 pixels is right, so that you have space for the playbar below. However, if you JUST use the height of the movie, then you get the playbar hidden.

Something similar might work with windows media player.

The obviously and really stupid problem here is that you don't have controls for the movie. That's.... bad.

[chechu]

Gracias ! Que bueno que entiendo el castellano ! Intente de poner enlaces al inglés, porfa, sino los yanquis se sientan excluidos !