Adobe Flash CS4 Professional for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Chapter 17

518

The FLVPlayback Component

Figure 17.50 The Component Inspector panel’s

Parameters section contains settings for all the

parameters of a selected instance of the FLVPlayback

component.

Figure 17.51 Clicking a parameter name activates a

fi eld for changing the parameter’s value.

Working with the

FLVPlayback Component

When you use Flash’s Video Import Wizard

to import video for use with a playback

component, the wizard adds a component

named FLVPlayback to the library and places

an instance of it on the Stage. You can replace

the component instance’s generic icon with a

frame from the video clip, change the source

 le, and modify the other parameters.

To choose source video for an

FLVPlayback instance:

1. Select the FLVPlayback component

instance on the Stage.

2. Access the Component Inspector panel.

If the panel isn’t open, choose Window >

Component Inspector.

3. Click the Parameters button (Mac) or tab

(Windows).

Parameter settings associated with the

component appear in a two-column table

(Figure 17.50).

4. To choose the video that appears in the

video-display window during playback,

in the Name column click the Source

parameter.

A search button (a magnifying-glass icon)

and text  eld with the path name of the

current source activates in the Value

column (Figure 17.51).

5. Click the  eld or the search button.

 e Content Path dialog appears.

6. To identify the source video  le (it must

be encoded in a Flash-compatible format,

such as FLV or F4V), do either of the

following:

▲

Enter a URL for the source video in

the Content Path  eld (Figure 17.52).

Adding Sound and Video

519

The FLVPlayback Component

Figure 17.52 The Content Path dialog lets you identify

the video that the FLVPlayback-component instance

will display to the end user.

Figure 17.53 The fi lename in the Value column for the

Source parameter of the FLVPlayback component is

the fi le that end users see in the fi nished movie.

▲

To  nd the  le you want, click the

folder icon on the right side of the

 eld. In the Browse for Source File

dialog that appears, navigate to the  le

you want, and click Open. Flash enters

the URL in the Content Path dialog.

7. To determine how Flash sizes the

FLVPlayback component instance, do

either of the following:

▲

To resize the component to  t the

source video, select the Match Source

Dimensions check box.

▲

To resize the video to  t within the

default FLVPlayback component (320

by 240 pixels), deselect the Match

Source Dimensions check box.

8. Click OK.

 e Getting Metadata progress bar

appears. Once it’s done, Flash updates

the Source parameter with the  le name

(Figure 17.53). Depending on what you

chose in step 7, Flash also resizes the

FLVPlayback component instance on

the Stage.  e instance now points to the

desired encoded video  le.

✔ Tip

■ If the skin you’ve chosen for the

FLVPlayback instance includes a volume-

control slider, you can set the starting

slider position. Click the value for Volume

and enter a new number: 1 sets the slider

all the way to the right (full volume);

values from 0.9 down to 0.1 set the slider

farther to the left (lower volumes); a value

of 0 sets the slider all the way to the left

(no sound). You can enter values greater

than 1, and those values create increas-

ingly louder starting volumes, but the

lever for the volume slider disappears.

During playback, clicking anywhere in the

slider brings the lever back, but end users

may  nd this confusing.

Enter URL

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