On Dec 29, 2008, at 2:55 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
It's a Shockwave Flash presentation and those are often NOT streaming
files with video. They actually have the pictures, audio and code for
transitions in the file. That makes for a very small file
compared to
a streaming video. Apparently proprietary and Adobe charges a lot for
the software to do it though I think they used to have a "basic"
version
for less. If Shemp is taking any classes like at a college (or
teaching
any for that matter) he could get a student discount. Adobe is
hurting
and I don't think raising their prices was the solution. They just
had
layoffs too. Then there is a open source initiative to replace Flash
which probably includes Shockwave presentations. If it wasn't
proprietary companies like Ulead, Nero, Magix and Pinnacle would have
released similar products.
I have many of the Adobe products, including Flash and I find it's
programming interface weirdly retro. It's not a real friendly
programming environment from what I've seen. Because of that, when
I've needed to use Flash, I just use a freeware app based on the
FFmpeg which includes an Flash/SWG muxer if I can. Adobe based Flash
encoding is also horribly slow, the FFmpeg implementation had less
options, but was much faster. So if Shemp wanted to just export it to
a file format FFmpeg would take, it would be a quick and easy
solution. The difficult part IMO is getting the embedded Flash file
to work correctly in your HTML/CSS, esp. autostarting or getting it
to have the controls you want on a rollover.
Big problem is many lame web designers go wild with Flash and bog down
browers. I've seen one Flash add running on a website the maxes out
everyones CPU. Users found if they used Flash block and turned off
that
ad the CPU max out went away. I guess it is time to add performance
modules to web design software with warnings that tell the hair-
brained
that there design will cause problems.
