Importing Flash video

I had a few problems trying to import a video into flash, i first tried to link it normally, but then realised you needed to have the video aswell.

incidently, the video was taken from a dvd of friends, resized and compressed to a suitable size (approx 4MB)

I then decided to upload it to a web server, and with help from one of my old school friends who operates a web host business, uploaded the file to his web server, and then link this to my flash.

I found out that this actually worked easily enough aswell, which i was pleased at (big thanks to my mate!)

heres a print screen of the video working:

Creating the Website

To be honest, i didnt realise how easy it was to create a website in flash, i had to create 4 layers :- content, actions, background and buttons.

I then worked on the first page, and decided to keep the same fonts and backgrounds as the introduction, so that the actual transition to the website is very smooth..


I added 6 buttons to my website, as this was required in the brief. These were:-
home, episode guide (i decided to choose this instead of the A-Z listing), Latest Clip, CAtegories, contact and Upgrade flash plugin (this linked to the adobe page to update flash).

The 3 pages i decided to link together and complete were home, latest clip and episode guide.

Creating the Splash

For the 10-20 second splash, i decided to create like a introdution to the characters in F.R.I.E.N.D.S, with their characters names, and their real life names.

For this i had to download a different picture of each character and manipulate this in photoshop beforehand, and place behind a polaroid template, as i thought a polaroid fit in well with the overall design of the movie.

I used the wipe and fade transistion effects for each photo to make it more interesting, and make the name appear near the end of the transition

I also got a copy of the rembrants- ill be there for you, and shortened the clip and imported into my splash, so now you can hear the theme tune aswell

Creating the Preloader

Creating the Preloader was fairly simple, i decided to use the same layout and fonts as i was to use on the website to keep everything the same, and so make the whole flash file look proffessional.



This is the code snippet i used, to make my preloader work correctly

myLoaded = Math.round(getBytesLoaded());
myTotal = Math.round(getBytesTotal());
myPercent = myLoaded/myTotal;
myBar._width = myPercent*150;
myText = Math.round(myPercent*100)+"%";
if (myLoaded == myTotal) {
gotoAndStop(3);
} else {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

CMP1014 Assignment 3- IPTV Website

My initial idea for this assignment was to do a 24 themed website, as my last assignment was 24 themed although i soon scrapped this idea as it was turning out more difficult to get hold of video clips and pictures to use for the website.

My Next idea which was my final idea was to do the same thing, but with a F.R.I.E.N.D.S theme, as i have recently been watching each series (gone from 1 to 6!!!)

I was able to get pictures off the internet easily enough, and i could also get a few video clips.

Exporting to a suitable format

I found that the labs computers and the AR0107 lecture theatre could play videos encoded with the WMV format, as all the computers are run on windows, so i decided to use this format.

THe video itself was 640x480 pixels, so for the smaller one, i simply halved this and encoded it with the same properties, although i had to change the frame rate to 15fps to enable playback from a CD.

Here is a screenshot of the properties i used to export the videos into a wmv file:-

Creating and addingTitles.

To create my title, i used adobes title creator included with premiere.

I actually found it easy to use, and was done within 2 minutes.

I created a black background, and in front of it, added my name, my enrolment number and the name of the video. I then changed the property so that it would scroll up from the bottom, and was pleased with the result:-