Embed Flash Video (FLV) in iWeb
You can find more compression settings articles in our Supercharging Compressor series index.After yesterday's article on why I prefer Flash Video to Quicktime, a couple of you wrote to ask just how you'd incorporate Flash Video content into your iWeb sites. Well, as you might expect, it's harder than it should be: Apple really does want you to use Quicktime, even where it's inappropriate. Your friends at GeniusDV are on the case: we can't make it painless, but we can make it a whole lot easier.
First things first: Dreamweaver provides the easiest way to embed Flash video -- you just drop the .FLV into your webpage. If you have (and are comfortable with) Dreamweaver but you like iWeb's aesthetics, your best bet is simply to create your webpages in iWeb, then open then in Dreamweaver to drop in the video before you put them on your live website.
Otherwise, strap yourself in and read on ...
Background
When it comes to web video, Flash works a little differently than Quicktime in a couple of key ways. Perhaps most importantly, Quicktime only asks that you supply a .MOV video -- it relies on a copy of the Quicktime player that's already on your users' computers. Flash, by contrast, requires that you provide both a small piece of player software (an SWF) AND the FLV video. Remember how Flash loads faster for your viewers? That's partly because the SWF player is so much smaller than the native Quicktime client. Also, since you're providing the player for Flash, you have as much (or as little) control as you want over how the player looks.
Since Flash authoring is way beyond the scope of this article, I'll just point you the way of FlowPlayer, a completely free and wildly popular player that someone else has already built for you (do note that, to remove the small "flowplayer" logo, there's a $95 license you can buy). We're not affiliated with them, we just like their product. Enjoy some demos, if you'd like.
Anyway, what we're trying to do in this tutorial is to set you up to embed FLV videos wherever you want them in your website, and quickly. In order to do that, we'll separate out the logic for placing the SWF player and connecting it to your FLV. We'll put it into a separate file, which we'll make available across your website (don't worry, I'll do most of the heavy lifting for you). Then, when you want to place a Flash video in iWeb, it's a matter of writing a single line of script, similar to:
placeFlashVideo( video name );
It's not quite as easy as embedding a .MOV, but it's as close as we can get.
Step-By-Step
...is in progress -- and I promise it'll be worth the wait. Check back tomorrow?
UPDATE: Part 2 is up now.
As always, drop me a line if you feel like it -- after all, I'm writing this tutorial in response to the emailers who asked for it!
When it comes to web video, Flash works a little differently than Quicktime in a couple of key ways. Perhaps most importantly, Quicktime only asks that you supply a .MOV video -- it relies on a copy of the Quicktime player that's already on your users' computers. Flash, by contrast, requires that you provide both a small piece of player software (an SWF) AND the FLV video. Remember how Flash loads faster for your viewers? That's partly because the SWF player is so much smaller than the native Quicktime client. Also, since you're providing the player for Flash, you have as much (or as little) control as you want over how the player looks.
Since Flash authoring is way beyond the scope of this article, I'll just point you the way of FlowPlayer, a completely free and wildly popular player that someone else has already built for you (do note that, to remove the small "flowplayer" logo, there's a $95 license you can buy). We're not affiliated with them, we just like their product. Enjoy some demos, if you'd like.
Anyway, what we're trying to do in this tutorial is to set you up to embed FLV videos wherever you want them in your website, and quickly. In order to do that, we'll separate out the logic for placing the SWF player and connecting it to your FLV. We'll put it into a separate file, which we'll make available across your website (don't worry, I'll do most of the heavy lifting for you). Then, when you want to place a Flash video in iWeb, it's a matter of writing a single line of script, similar to:
placeFlashVideo( video name );
It's not quite as easy as embedding a .MOV, but it's as close as we can get.
Step-By-Step
...is in progress -- and I promise it'll be worth the wait. Check back tomorrow?
UPDATE: Part 2 is up now.
As always, drop me a line if you feel like it -- after all, I'm writing this tutorial in response to the emailers who asked for it!
Listed below are 0 links to blogs that reference this entry: Embed Flash Video (FLV) in iWeb.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/mt-tb.cgi/1076
Leave a comment