SOME RANDOM DUDE

Say what you want about Google, they are the gargantuan multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, but the news from YouTube to radically open its platform has Google written all over it. With the features they have opened up, developers can (almost) essentially use YouTube as a free video hosting/serving solution. As expected, the videos will also be viewable on YouTube, but for people with little wallets and big ideas, this does not seem like a bad tradeoff. Services like Brightcove are going to no doubt lose some clients with less hefty pocketbooks.
(more…)actionscript 2, actionscript 3, api, brightcove, conglomerate, custom queries, developer community, flash, flash video, flv file, google, hosting solution, hurdles, international locales, video file, video playback, video site, youtube youtube api

For nearly the past year of my life, Flash Video has been the main focus of my work. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to build the next-generation Flash Video player for Current TV in 2006 and I am currently working on another video player project for another large online media organization. With Actionscript 3.0 becoming a more viable option for development with every passing day (Flash Player 9 is up to about 50% penetration already), I am very interested in how the video model works under the new version of Flash’s programming language. After mucking around in AS3 for a short time, I was surprised at how easy the migration is - luckily, video is no exception.

I read a well done mini-writeup on Actionscript 3 video and I came away very excited at the prospect of using Actionscript 3 from this point forward. The code is leaner, and once and for all we can create a video object exclusively through Actionscript (it is about time).

Also, due to the Actionscript 3 event model (details here), no longer do we need to see this:

netStream.onStatus = function(sObj:NetStatusEvent)	{
	trace("sObj.info.code")
}

This has never been fun due to scoping issues and just an overall bloat to your code.

netStream.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, status);

public function status(sObj:NetStatusEvent):Void	{
	trace(sObj.info.code);
}

With event listeners, it keeps the code much more consolidated with no more scoping problems and nested functions. Beautiful stuff. My next video project will most definitely be in Actionscript 3, my hope is all my future projects will be as well.

del.icio.us linkactionscript, code, daily, delicious, flash, flash video, link, media, programming, video video object actionscript 3

I stumbled upon a great actionscript blog and discovered a pretty amazing Actionscript 3 Flash application. Simply, it dynamically encodes a JPEG from a playing FLV (Flash video) file and allows you to either save it to the server or to your own computer. Have a look at the project page for more details. This is just one small yet very cool reason why Actionscript 3 is going to dramatically change what can be done on the web. I have begun to slowly delve into AS3 and I am pretty amazed at the possibilities.

Not to beat a dead horse, but anti-flash standardistas, try doing that with AJAX.

del.icio.us linkactionscript 3, as3, daily delicious, encoder, flash, flash video, frame capture, jpeg, jpg, link, rich media, try doing that with AJAX video

Another great collection of links for your consumption this Friday. If you’re interested in some eye candy, have a look at the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Swiss US embassy. As usual, I have all sorts of carbon emission/reduction articles which are good reading (if you are into that sort of thing). As always, feel free to add your favorite links of this week in the comments section.

Enjoy the links.
(more…)al gore, architecture, artist royalty payments, axis of climate gases, birds, boston, boulder colorado, capitol hill, carbon emissions, carbon offsets, censorship, civil wars, community mapping sites, culture shock, digg, DRM, faithless, flash, flash video, george bush, Google index, hacker, institute of contemporary art, iraq war, links, malota, micro site, microsoft, middle east, missile proofing runways, november 7, ohio voting, phoenix motorcars, Photography, plus, prisoners by country, psiphon, riaa, smart forfour PHEV, solar cell, solar power, south park libertarians, spoke pov, swiss embassy, taxing carbon, the little truck that could, top searches, usability issues, video, voting fraud, web pages that suck, weekly, work 5 days a week, yahoo zune arts

The more I read attacks on Flash, the more I end up shaking my head in confusion. Honestly, I am a little surprised this is still being debated. People, we need to get over this. Before I elaborate further, I want to make clear my support for web standards, usability and accessibility. Additionally, I understand the concern with Flash - it is not as easy to make accessible compared to HTML/CSS, it has, and continues, to be used for some really stupid things, etc., etc., etc. We have all been down that road, we have heard the arguments. That being said, standardistas: you are fighting a losing battle, and on top of it, a battle not worth fighting. Flash is about as standards-friendly as any media plug-in there is. For each bad use of Flash, there are hundreds being used well. Lastly, and more importantly, it is changing what we can do on a browser and how our generation accesses media. Please, for everyone’s sake, stop griping about Flash and start educating people on how it can be used more effectively with standards and accessibility in mind.
(more…)accessibility, css, flash, flash video, html, javascript, opinion, standardistas, standards, usability, user generated content, video, web development you need to chill the hell out