New Flash TRAILER system

[Emancipator]

I decided to finally start learning flash. My first flash project is a trailer park system. The movies are all fed from an xml feed so I can update every aspect of the system externally.

I have never made any thing in flash before. This is my first project done entirely with Actionscript. The one feature I am most proud of is that fact that the video auto-sizes to conform to the screen. So it will switch between widescreen and regular so you get best picture format. The code behind that took me quite a bit of humming. Each video clip, regardless of if it is 1min long or 6mins long is less then 1meg. So even dialup users can appreciate it. You can check it out here http://www.moviesonline.ca/movie_trailers.php

If you want the code to play with yourself just ask me. Happy to share it with you. I somewhat regret making my first flash project so tough but it turned out well. Took about 4-5 hours to complete. Feedback is welcome, naturally. Just be aware i still dont know really WTH im doing :P

[michael_gersitz]

Wow. Very Nice. How did you get the video files to be under 1 meg with such nice quality? Where is the xml feed coming from? Your own site?

[Emancipator]

I encoded the videos into flash first. There is 1 file in the batch that I couldnt compress to 1meg or less but on average they are 1meg to 1.5megs. The XML feed i store on my server. So when I want to add or update something I dont need to do anything i flash I just update the XML and I can then change the entire look and feel and whats playing on the trailer park system.

This was my first flash project and the latest update I did to it was the making it know what size to make the video. The width is autoset, but i dont want the height stretched. So with some code I made it auto-set the height.

Im as green as it gets with flash still only had a few hours with it now but I can see its potential and am excited to keep playing with it. Thanks for the feedback Michael.

[Cutter]

Very nice work! I messed arond with flash animations way back when, but nothing like that.

[Emancipator]

Ive not tried doing any flash animation work at all yet. I created the entire system in actionscript. Was a fun project and I am sure once I get more then a few hours into flash i will be able to uncover how to do some really cool stuff.

Thanks for the feedback cutter :)

[Westech]

Nice! It looks even better than the first 5 times you showed it to me! :p

[Emancipator]

yes it has evolved nicely. You will notice after much messing about I did in fact get it working :)

[michael_gersitz]

No Problem. Perhaps why my flash files are so large is because I am using a third party software to convert the movie files into .flv. Do you use Macromedia flash to convert? Or do you not do teh converting yourself.... ?

[James]

Emancipator, I suggest that you have a URL that people can copy and paste shown for each video that'll let them link other people to them.

[Emancipator]

Not sure of the value of the link or how I would even implement it in a way that added any value. People can just give a link to the trailer park and select the video they want. Michael I use Flash 8 PRO to do all of my encoding.

[michael_gersitz]

Flash 8 came out already... Wowzers... better get me a copy! This new version(8) is supposed to have alot more features in video!

[Emancipator]

i dont know much about flash but i did do alot of reading and Flash 8 Pro does apparently have alot of improvements. Little side note I bought it and dreamweaver and fireworks 8 for less then $500 as a repeat customer. sweetest deal of the century!

[James]

Well, my suggestion was based off the fact that I found it very annoying to have to tell my friend to click on a specific video, and I find myself haeving to do this with more and more sites, and end up going to these sites less and less. I'm assuming many people are the same. I'll find another site with the trailer to link to if I can't find an easy link to it--if I'm planning to link to a trailer at all, that is.

[Emancipator]

there are only a dozen feature videos. I really dont see how that can be annoying. Now if I had 400 "featured" trailers then yes it would be SUPER annoying. If people want a specific trailer that is what the "search trailers" is for. The feature trailers is my method of keeping the focus on cool "new trailers" or "featured trailers" which load super fast regardless of connection. Feedback is welcome naturally, even if this time I completely disagree with you :P

[michael_gersitz]

Well, you will figure out how to program the action script to pop up the right video if you do it right... have it like flash_movies.php?id=18 and the id will bring up the video...

[michael_gersitz]

Just downloaded the trial version... time to re-enocode some videos!!!!

[Emancipator]

Well, you will figure out how to program the action script to pop up the right video if you do it right... have it like flash_movies.php?id=18 and the id will bring up the video...

Coding that is quite simple, compared to the xml parsing code I had to write. Wouldnt be any tough task. But it again comes back to whats the point? I could be completely missing the boat but when you have a dozen feature videos is a "heres how to link it it" really necessary?

If i was to put all 800+ trailers into it then yes I would agree full heartedly with you but I just totally miss the point on having it so people can link to a "clip" when they can just link to the trailer page and pick it off the list. Know what I mean McQueen?

Have fun by the way with the flash 8 pro.. it kicks serious ***... even though all I have done is some Action Scripting :P

[michael_gersitz]

Why not throw the featured videos right on the front page... and make an intro duction video on how to use it... and only display the 15 newest videos... and under all your reviews... have a link that says... "watch the trailer" and have it popup in a seperate flash player... or just open in a new popup window and play?

[Emancipator]

i dont have room for it on the mainpage. I again wonder though did you need to be told how to use it? The idea is that anyone regardless of connection speed can enjoy high quality feautured trailers, no more then 12 or so of em.

Not sure why I need popups or linking instructions, etc. I may be completely in the dark here but feel free to inform me :)

[Westech]

Why not just embed all 15 trailers on your homepage so that they all load and play at the same time when the page is opened? That way if someone wants to watch a video all they have to remember is your homepage URL. No need to click on any extra links... Much more simple and user friendly. :p

[michael_gersitz]

Maybe i didn't explain clearly enough. (To busy messing with flash 8) If you were really looking to expand your site. Each New movie review you publish you can put a link under it where it says "click here toview trailer"... Then it would popup in a window and would play. Would be a cool feature, but there is already a bunch of sites that have all the new movie trailers such as imdb and yahoo. how you have it now is a good way for users just to check out the hottest new trailers... which the other do not have. (or at least i am not aware of).

How did you manage to get the video so small. I am trying to import a .wmv file and export as a .flv file and it is not working to great. How big are the trailers before you bring them into flashpro?

[michael_gersitz]

Why not just embed all 15 trailers on your homepage so that they all load and play at the same time when the page is opened? That way if someone wants to watch a video all they have to remember is your homepage URL. No need to click on any extra links... Much more simple and user friendly. :p


Yes. Adding flash videos. And just videos in general will make your site stand out. Esspically when it would be very costly for other webmasters to copy the idea! Also, throw your url on it... so someone just copy and paste it on there server... or allow people to put it on there site.. just put your URL all over it.. :)

[ogito]

what I noticed is that flash video takes more cpu resources (watch your cpu usage during the video)

[Emancipator]

Yes. Adding flash videos. And just videos in general will make your site stand out. Esspically when it would be very costly for other webmasters to copy the idea! Also, throw your url on it... so someone just copy and paste it on there server... or allow people to put it on there site.. just put your URL all over it.. :)

I think their is some confusion on what the trailer system is doing. What it is, is a feature trailer system. I would love to do it with all the trailers I get but I can not for a variety of reasons including the fact that many are protected streams that the studios send me.

People can already from any news item get to the movie page and watch all the trailers, not just 1 since I typically have far more then 1 trailer per movie. I also already embed the trailers directly into the news like so

http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_7365.html

A feature trailer is something I consider HOT or worth putting at the top of my "latest trailers" page. Hot determined by number of hits and if I have an exclusive on it, and most importantly IF I can encode it ( ie, not encoded stream) It is not intended to replace anything. And to be honest because I have well over 800 trailers on my site to encode them all ( IF I could encode them all which I can not ) would be one hell of a task.

The idea of allowing people to put it on their website is a great idea and something I already started messing with after I noticed the Associated Press does it.

Lastly, on the note of having every trailer just load when a user hits my page I can not since I cant afford that kinda bandwith. I used to have it do something similar and I was putting Westechs bandwith usage to shame. Trailers are by no means a new feature on my website and the "feature trailers" is just a way for me to keep focus on the really cool ones.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I have gotten some ideas on some updates I am going to do from this thread :)

[Emancipator]

Why not just embed all 15 trailers on your homepage so that they all load and play at the same time when the page is opened? That way if someone wants to watch a video all they have to remember is your homepage URL. No need to click on any extra links... Much more simple and user friendly. :p

Gotta ask Westech how is this more user friendly? Its not like I got a skill testing question involved in watching a feature trailer :P Clicking a link is easy enough for me.. but I know I am an elite user of the inter-web.. lol