Flash Video for your Website

Video and the Internet seem ideally matched. Video is the medium that most closely echoes our day-to-day visual experiences, and the Internet is a boundless playground filled with interesting content. You might expect, therefore, that thousands of compelling websites would integrate video with data, content, and interactive controls to create rich experiences that go beyond what is possible with video on a television set. Unfortunately, early video content on the web was often relegated to a simple rectangle of content playing back on a computer monitor, usually in a separate pop-up window covering the website page that spawned it. The video images were often small and ugly, and the overall experience was poor.

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In the past, several technical challenges kept designers from using video content to its full potential, including the following: Bandwidth limitations Video is a data-intensive format, requiring megabytes of data to display even short video clips. The growth of broadband has greatly reduced this technical obstacle. Increasingly large numbers of site visitors have the bandwidth required to receive video content via the web, but file size can still present a problem for many visitors. Complexity of authoring video for the web The tool sets for creating interactivity, navigation control, and fusion of video with other rich media content have not been standardized. Furthermore, the majority of video playback clients are not pre-installed on most visitors' systems, so many visitors must pause to download a plug-in or third-party application before they can view video. Lack of compelling integration of video and other web content Most video formats for the web offer no rich media capabilities beyond playback of video in a rectangular window. Fortunately, Flash video (which presents video content seamlessly and in context, in a form that site visitors can view using Flash Player) overcomes these issues.

Flash video offers technological and creative benefits that allow designers to create impressive, rich experiences that fuse video together with data, graphics, sound, and dynamic interactive control. The advantages of using Flash to present video online include:

Ubiquity
Since the introduction of Flash video in 2002, Flash Player has become the most widely installed Internet video client, running on over 96% of all Internet-connected personal computers. Also, Flash Player runs on a wide variety of platforms and operating systems. The ubiquity of Flash Player ensures that most visitors can view Flash video without downloading additional plug-ins, so you can reach more people with lower development, testing, and support costs.

Full creative control
Web-based video integrates seamlessly into your website, and you can add a new "skin" on your video content to customize your branding and design unique video playback controls. You can also set the size and aspect ratio of your video, and the video can dynamically change based on a data source.

Rich, interactive, contextual video
Flash video provides impressive and interactive experiences. Because Flash treats video as simply another media type, you can layer, script, and control video content just like any other object in a SWF file. Flash video is an integral part of the viewing experience, as opposed to a separate pop-up window that interrupts the experience.

The following image shows a sophisticated example of a web page containing web video synchronized to text and graphics. The superimposed dotted blue outline shows the boundary of the area where the SWF file is displayed; the dotted red outline shows the boundary of the area where the web video (FLV or MPEG-4) file is displayed, as part of the SWF content. A SWF file can contain graphics, text, and client logic (for creating video controls, for example). It can refer to an external video file, and it plays in Flash Player. A Flash video file contains primarily audio and video, and it plays inside a SWF file.

If you are interested in how you can incorporate this video technology for you website contact Bischoff Studios today.