Why is it I see more and more Flash animation (animation that was created with Flash) presented in mov and mpg format. Why is that? The other formats are heavier what is it that makes you present them on the net in mov, mpg, or avi format rather than swf? Someone fill me in. I've been told by "experts" that flash doesn't drop frames, so that can't be your reason. Fill me in someone. I have more problems with the Real and QuickTime Players (can you say spyware?) than I ever have had with the Flash Player.
Pat
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Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
The Macromedia documentation itself says it will cut out frames to accomodate inadequate connections, so if that's their reason, I'd say it's pretty valid.
The first thing that comes to mind is the weird "amateur" connotation that lots of Flash material has taken on. Even though in movie format the software origins of the artwork are still pretty clear, perhaps they feel it gives them the same degree of professionalism as a "packaged" movie file.
I didn't know QuickTime had spyware, but I hear things all the time about the security holes of RealPlayer. I download it once an eon to see specific videos but it's clunky and the videos are terrible; they're a shell of their former self.
I use Windows Media Player for MPEG videos.
I'm with you, for what it's worth; native Flash has a much higher compatibility rate across the board than -any- movie player software.
Well I am about ready to ditch QuickTime, no matter what I do this damn thing keeps resetting and starting everytime my computer fires up. I didn't ask it to, and I've turned it off I don't know how many times, all I can think is it's phoning home. Which I can't abide. I've checked my registry, ini and autoexec files, but I get it cleaned up for one reboot and it's back.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Well I've gotten into a heated debated with Ibis over at FlashFilmMaker that says it doesn't happen. But I notice almost everything he puts up now is in another format other than swf.
And it's not just inadequate connections, it has to do with cpu usage. How windows are currently open, how many other functions are being performed.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I would still rather wait for a 400k download than a 3 meg download. Most of the stuff I wait for are no better than a lot of swf work that I've seen. So a frame here or there is dropped I still say the swf format is more internet friendly.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
It drops it to -be- Internet friendly. They're largely flat washes of color and line work; if you have a decent graphics card....anything approaching decent, I don't see why the computer itself would be dealing with it at all. Maybe it's more like what you said, with programs open, more RAM-ish issues...
I don't mind Quicktime (I didn't till the title-bar stealing ad over the weekend lol) but it is inconsistent in whether it loads stuff on independent pages, and I don't want it automatically coming up when Windows boots. I checked Startup and everything and nothing in the preferences that I've seen...If you snag a fix for that you'll be my Favorite Pat for a Day!
Well call me your favorite Pat for a Day! Just found the fix. Do a search for qttask.exe and rename it something like qttask2.exe. Voila it doesn't load at boot up. I am so happy! I am on an older ram crippled machine so everything running in the background makes a difference. I've turned this damn thing off so many times with "Startup Cop" only to see it rear it's ugly head again after a couple of bootups. Doesn't disable your browser plugin or any other uses of Quicktime.
I'am on an old PIII/500 with 256 ram with dialup, my poor old Diamond Viper AGP only has 16megs on board.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Geepers, I was looking for a cleaner way, but that's an old standby that I forgot that works for just about anything, including tricking programs of true evil!
Thanks Favorite Pat!
AMD Athlon 2.08GHz, 512MB RAM on 4.0mbps broadband, and an nVidia GeForce4 MX integrated graphics chip. Quite a blessing to have around...
As one who more often than not renders files to QT than SWF, I'll tell you the reasons I do it.
First and foremost is playback. Animating for SWF means VERY limited use of assets. SWF renders on the fly, which means that playback depends more heavily on a faster machine than movie files do. Not only do you get dropped frames, but you also get flickering and rendering issues.
Another reason is that the SWF format has fewer controls over playback. You can't stop the movie or rewind a few frames unless you build those features into your SWF. QT and most movie players have those features by default, independent of your movie.
Those are my primary reasons. Also, since I do most of my animation for broadcast now, it's a lot easier to deal with QT all the way through instead of having an SWF version just for online.
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My Animation Blogspot Site
So long as you don't specifically prohibit it in your export options stopping and frame-by-frame movement is accessible via a right-click drop-down menu when viewing SWFs in Internet Explorer. Granted, it's no slider, but still...
I know I export out as .avi's or .mov's because I usually end up editing and exporting from Premiere. This is for many reasons, some being I have clips at different FPS as well as different formats. As for SWF's dropping frames, as far as I know it does. Or at least it used to when I was doing more web stuff. The whole idea is that it tries to play at real time, so if it starts to get bogged down by to big of a file, it'll drop frames. Wasn't that the whole idea of having preloaders? But yeah, I haven't really done web work in a long time, so I don't remember.
As for Quick Time loading have you guys tried re-installing it, I seem to remember there being a check box if you wanted it to launch at start up. If not, I think you can go to the Start menu, then to Run. Type in msconfig, go to the Start Up tab, and you can un-check all the QT boxes. This will stop them from running at when you re-start.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I did that so many times, and something would iniate it again at start up. This is the latest player, the other versions always had a check spot in preferences for startup, but this one doesn't.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Advantage of Quicktime over Flash for web animation:
The audio syncs better, especially for longer cartoons.
Animation performance is more consistent on under-powered computers. This is VERY noticable on the Mac side, where Flash player performance is poorly optimised compared to the PC.
Because of intrusive and annoying Flash ads, and fear of spyware, many people are now disabling Flash playback on their computers.
Many useful post-production tools are quicktime based.
Flash's handling of bitmap artwork is hit and miss.
Interestingly, Flash's own movie format (FLC) is not seeing much adoption yet...I think largely because the Sorenson codec they use is junk unless you get the Pro version of MX, along with Sorenson squeeze, which is all wildly overpriced. It's a pity, since the Flash plug-in probably has better cross-platform support than either Quicktime or Windows Media.
Quicktime is really an outstanding tool. It's a pity the PC version is not better integrated into the OS. (Quicktime Pro is the swiss army knife of video...you won't find a more useful video tool for 30 bucks)
The increasing adoption of broadband and the improvement of video codecs mean that more and more developers are finding video a viable alternative to Flash for online content delivery. I think this trend will continues, as we see more and more convergence between broadcast and online content. Flash developers can only blame themselves, for making buggy and overweight web presentations, whoring themselves out to advertisers and inundating the world with scatalogical humor. It really is sad, as I have always felt Flash was an OUTSTANDING format for web presentation, when it is used with restraint. Macromedia isn't helping matters any, by progressively abandoning animators in favor of application developers.
But I digress. Suffice to say, video will probably become the preferred format for online animation delivery before long.
IMHO...
What's red, furry and on your six?
Thanks Cherokee and Beeblebrox, I had my suspicions, but you have definitely reinforced them.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
It's too bad Macromedia didn't focus more on making their playback more stable instead of focussing on interactive developement. Don't get me wrong, interaction is still one of Flash's strong points.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I like SWF's as they are uncompressed yet small file sizes. However - when I export Quicktime from Flash I get a Flash vector graphic file WITHIN quicktime. These are only a little bigger than SWF's and can be scaled until you get smooth playing, and a bar to pick sections of the film, though quality cannot be altered. I don't see why people don't use these.
Mike Futcher - www.yogyog.org