Subtitles of the Movie

In the previous movie, I demonstrated the use of the Flash Video Encoder to batch process video files and convert them into the FLV format for use with Flash. Although this Flash Video Encoder is free and convenient, there are other applications that can convert a variety of video formats into the FLV format. Two of the leading solutions are Sorenson Squeeze, which I have here, and Flix Pro, which is the website here. Although not free, in some important ways both of these products are better encoding solutions than the Flash Video Encoder itself. So In this movie, I provide a summary and comparison of these two products and their various features. Let me start with Sorenson Squeeze. Although Sorenson Media no longer provides the main codec for Flash Video, the Sorenson Squeeze application is a powerful and versatile conversion application. It can be upgraded with the plug-in to include the latest onto VP6 codec. Sorenson Squeeze is hands down my favorite FLV encoder. It's available in various versions. You can see here the Squeeze Suite, the Squeeze Power Pack, or the Squeeze for Flash version. Prices ranging from 249 to up to 649 for the Squeeze Power Pack. Here on this website there is a comparison chart of the various features available for the various versions, including Windows Media Output, Flash Output, Spark, VP6, QuickTime Output, Real Output plug-ins down here. Notice that the Onto VP6 Pro encoder is included in the Squeeze Power Pack. You can also upgrade Squeeze for Flash to include the Onto VP6 plug in for an additional 149 dollars. Although a bit pricey, these two more full-featured versions of Squeeze - the Squeeze Suite or the Squeeze Power Pack - are great video file converters, with or without the need to convert to the FLV format. They are both a good addition to your Flash toolkit, and I can highly recommend either one. Their mature interface, in fact the mature interfaces of all three of these products, provide the best work flow and productivity of the three solutions that I cover here in this tutorial. Squeeze for Flash is easy to use, has a lot of options, and in my opinion does a better job of compressing FLV files than the Flash Video Encoder. A suite of video encoders are also available from Onto Technologies, the company that provides the latest VP6 codec for flash. The VP6 video codec is the default codec and probably the one that's most likely the one you'll want to use. I have two pages here from Onto. This page gives a list of the various suite of video encoders they have for sale. Flix Pro is their flagship product. Notice that it's 249 dollars. They've also got Flix Pro for Flash, which is this product here, also 249 dollars. But there's other products here - Flix Studio, Flix Standard, Flix Exporter, Flix Engine, Flix Live, and so on. All of these products are available from the Onto website here. Regarding Flix Pro 8.5 for Flash, which was the most recent version at the time of this recording, I have a sample here, trial sample that I've opened up. Notice that cue points are now supported. They weren't supported in earlier versions of Flix Pro. However, the user interface, I think, is not as well designed as Sorenson Spark or the Flash Video Encoder. However Flix Pro does provide two pass coding that delivers superior video quality. The inclusion, in fact, of this single feature represents a dramatic improvement over the Flash Video Encoder. So in summary, I can say that Flix Pro can encode excellent quality video, and will perfectly adequate for most users, however Power Users may find the interface and limited options a little bit frustrating. And that will conclude this section of the tutorial on working with video in your Flash projects. In this section you've learned how to import video using the Flash Video Import Wizard. You've learned all about video compression and how to compress video in the import wizard as well as how to edit the video. You've also learned how to encode video with the stand alone Flash Video Flash Encoder. And you've had a brief survey of two third party encoders that also do a good job of converting various video files into the FLV format. Let me now move on to the next section of the tutorial, where I cover three ways to add interactive elements to your Flash files, behaviors, basic action scripting, and components.