Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web

Product Description

More than just a programming guide, this book takes you step by step through the process of gathering and preparing content, asking the right questions, determining the scope of the project and writing the project proposal. The authors cull from their professional experience of running their own digital media company to explain the special considerations in deploying Flash video applications, presenting ideas for solutions as well as tips for avoiding the most common pitfalls.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #258757 in Books
* Published on: 2007-07-02
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 362 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
If your site needs video, you need this book

Now there's a single definitive source for everything Flash developers need to know to integrate cutting-edge video into a website—seamlessly. Whether your Flash skills focus on design or programming, this guide helps you with every phase from writing the project proposal to deploying finished applications. A step-by-step workflow directs you through setting up a work environment, designing applications, using ActionScript 2 and 3, Flash® Media Server 2, and every stage in between. Packed with tried-and-true solutions and detailed code examples, it's exactly what you need to deliver interactive video to your clients.

* Understand your clients' needs and ask the right questions to determine the scope of their projects
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Obtain source video and optimize it for Web-based playback
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Develop a site or Web application that incorporates video
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Create and skin a player with Flash in both ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3
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Explore hosting requirements, server options, and streaming vs. progressive download delivery
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Publish your site and enable the client to update it with automated tools

Learn how to create full-featured video players with custom-designed skins

Develop professional interactive video applications that utilize the power of ActionScript 2 and 3

About the Author
Lisa Larson and Renée Costantini are cofounders of the digital media firm go:toGroup Inc. As technical director, Larson specializes in Flash video development and was featured as one of ten established developers in Adobe's "Flash: Ten Years, Ten Perspectives." Creative director Costantini is an expert in user interface design and usability. go:toGroup has worked with many start-ups as well as companies like Adobe, L'Oreal, and Microsoft.
Customer Reviews

The Missing Link (for Flash Vidheads)5
This book is a much-needed resource and road map to creating all kinds of Flash video for the web. Authors Larson and Constantini begin with a chapter on project archaeology and conclude with a chapter on live video. In between, they cover all the nooks and crannies from encoding, the big picture of Object Oriented Programming, dynamic playlists.....in others words: Flash Video from soup to nuts. Coming from a traditional non-web video background in editing and graphics, this book is quite simply the book I'd been hoping would appear once I began to dabble in Flash development. Up to this point, most Flash books usually have a standard chapter or two about video. This book is the whole enchilada and delivers a fantastic "forest for the trees" perspective on planning, creating and deploying Flash video websites. The text is very well-articulated on subject matter that is quite complex. Whether you're an advanced specialist ready to dip right into the Action Script and get your own Flash video ball rolling or you need a quick primer in order to talk the talk with a Flash colleague, this book is your pixel-perfect friend. From a technical standpoint, there is a lot here, but one can browse very easily for quick solutions. From a creative standpoint, there are many inspiring examples and recipes to apply everything from a simple YouTube interface to a more ambitious video wall a la Nam Jun Paik to a website. Ultimately, I enjoyed the book mostly in how it challenged me to approach Flash video as its own art and craft, however new. From cue points to video skins to custom players; the sky's the limit. Let this book be your breath of fresh FLV air.

And now I know the why5
A lot of books focus on telling you what to do. This is great as it enables you to get the job done.

Far too often people who write technical manuals think that is all the learner requires in order to retain knowledge.

Thank goodness this book doesn't stop there. It tells you WHY things should be done this way in addition to the HOW. I've found this process much more reliable as a means to transmit information in a sticky format.

I've been working with Flash video for years and have found through trial and error how to get videos to work properly.

This book finally explains in plain english things like keyframes, interlacing for web, exactly how the new CODEC works.

Ultimately, every new thing this book taught me was set in cement by the logical explanation of the why.

This is a must5
Very good book that covers all from the beginig to the deploying to better deploy your video content. I am pleased to have gotten this book