Create video files for use in Animate

Adobe Animate can incorporate digital video footage into web-based presentations. The FLV and F4V (H.264) video formats offer technological and creative benefits that let you fuse video together with data, graphics, sound, and interactive control. FLV and F4V videos let you easily put video on a web page in a format that almost anyone can view.

Embed video in the Animate document

You can embed a small, short-duration video file directly into the Animate document, and publish it as part of the SWF file. Embedding video content directly into the Animate SWF file significantly increases the size of published file, and is only suitable for small video files (typically less then 10 seconds in length). In addition, the audio to video synchronization (also known as audio/video sync) can become mis-synchronized when using longer video clips embedded in the Animate document. Another disadvantage to embedding video within the SWF file is that you cannot update the video without republishing the SWF file.

You can control the playback of video in Animate using the FLVPlayback component, by writing custom ActionScript to play an external video stream, or by writing custom ActionScript to control the playback of video in the Timeline for embedded video.

Lets you quickly add a full-featured FLV playback control to your Animate document and provides support for both progressive downloading and streaming FLV or F4V files. FLVPlayback lets you easily create intuitive video controls for users to control video playback and apply pre-made skins, or apply your own custom skins to the video interface. For more information see The FLVPlayback component.

Play back external FLV or F4V files in a Animate document at runtime using the NetConnection and NetStream ActionScript objects. For more information see Controlling external video playback with ActionScript.

You can use video behaviors (pre-written ActionScript scripts) to control video playback.

To control playback of embedded video files, you must write ActionScript to control the Timeline containing the video. For more information see Control video playback using the Timeline.

The Video Import Wizard

The Video Import Wizard simplifies the importing of video into a Animate document by guiding you through the process of selecting an existing video file, and importing the file for use in one of three different video playback scenarios. The Video Import Wizard provides a basic level of configuration for the import and playback method you choose, which you can later modify for your specific requirements.

The Video Import dialog box provides these video import options:

Imports the video and creates an instance of the FLVPlayback component to control video playback. When you are ready to publish the Animate document as a SWF and upload it to your web server, you must also upload the video file to either a web server or Adobe Media Server, and configure the FLVPlayback component with the location of the uploaded video file.

Embeds the FLV into the Animate document. When you import video this way, the video is placed in the Timeline where you can see the individual video frames represented in the Timeline frames. An embedded FLV video file becomes part of the Animate document.

note: Embedding video content directly into the Animate SWF file significantly increases the size of published file, and is only suitable for small video files. In addition, the audio to video synchronization (also known as audio/video sync) can become mis-synchronized when using longer video clips embedded in the Animate document.

Embeds H.264 videos into the Animate document.  When you import a video using this option, it can be placed on the stage to be used as a guide for your animation at design time. Frames from the video will be rendered on the stage as you scrub through or play the timeline. The audio for the relevant frames will also be played back.

Video formats and Animate

To import video into Animate you must use video encoded in the FLV or H.264 format. The Video Import Wizard (File > Import > Import Video) checks video files that you select for import, and alerts you if the video might not be in a format that Animate can play. In the event that the video is not in either the FLV or F4V format, you can use Adobe® Media® Encoder to encode the video in the appropriate format.

Adobe Media Encoder

Adobe® Media® Encoder is a stand-alone encoding application employed by programs such as Adobe® Premiere® Pro, Adobe® Soundbooth®, and Animate for output to certain media formats. Depending on the program, the Adobe Media Encoder provides a specialized Export Settings dialog box that accommodates the numerous settings associated with certain export formats, such as Adobe Flash Video and H.264. For each format, the Export Settings dialog box includes a number of presets that are tailored for particular delivery media. You can also save custom presets, which you can share with others or reload as needed.

For information on encoding video in the H.264 or F4V format using Adobe Media Encoder, see Using Adobe Media Encoder.

More like this

• Add video to Animate
• The FLVPlayback component
• Controlling external video playback with ActionScript