9 Responses for "Flash Video Crash Course"

1. Wanski September 26th, 2007 at 12:28 am 1

   great article for newbie like myself
   quick question
   how do i disable background downloading of a .flv embeded on a html
   try disable auto start but it did not disable the bg downloading
   i’m looking at enabling the bg downloading only once the play button is click on

   wan

2. lisa September 26th, 2007 at 5:11 pm 2

   Wan,
   Flash can’t start downloading the video until you tell it which video to load… You could wait to specify the video source, in ActionScript, until the play button is clicked. Are you using the FLVPlayback component?
   // Lisa

3. Wanski October 1st, 2007 at 4:56 am 3

   Lisa
   im using dreamweaver bulit in insert flv method.
   the flv is inserted as a url that we had with akamai.
   the problem we had is that we used to embed tons of flv on our site, once user log on to our site the flv will start to download in the background
   we need to stop that, cos we had over exceed our monthly contract with akamai.
   hope this is all clear

   wan

4. lisa October 9th, 2007 at 10:56 am 4

   wan,
   The only way to prevent this is in your current setup would be to stream the video instead of serve it via progressive download. Unless you can create your player in Flash, thus giving you more control, streaming is the only way to prevent content loading in the background. I’m sure streaming is a bit more expensive with Akamai, but it may be cheaper at the end of the month than paying for all that bandwidth.
   HTH
   // Lisa

5. Keven January 17th, 2008 at 11:53 am 5

   Hi Lisa,
   I’m actually having the same problem as Wan. I’ve tried using streaming as well as progressive download via Flash’s FLV player but the video automatically starts downloading even with autoPlay set to false. Is there a quick line of ActionScript that would tell the FLV not to load until the play button is pressed?
   Thanks

6. lisa January 17th, 2008 at 12:08 pm 6

   Unfortunately, Adobe sees this as a “feature”… the video will continue to load in the background when served progressively. This should not occur when streaming video, however… unless you have a very large buffer assigned? i.e. myStream.setBufferTime(20);

   Try setting a shorter buffer, and pausing the video. The video should not load in the background over the time set to buffer…

7. Keven January 17th, 2008 at 4:23 pm 7

   Thanks Lisa. But the bufferTime is set to 0.1 and it is set for streaming. The loading bar still progresses even before the Play button is press. I guess I’ll have to figure out some sort of weird workaround.

8. Ken April 2nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm 8

   Can you make a swf. flash movie open on a homepage of a site automatically only once, browse the site, then come back to the homepage & NOT have the flash movie play again automatically? Basically I`m wondering if you can make a flash movie play just on the initial opening of a homepage & not repeat opening when you come back to the homepage??? Any advice would be greatly appreciated it. Thank you!

9. lisa larson~kelley April 2nd, 2009 at 4:04 pm 9

   @Ken,

   Yes, you can do this by setting a “cookie” in Flash using a local shared object (LSO). You can set your LSO value when the first intro SWF is loaded (i.e. “SWFplayed=true”), and check the value before playing again.

   HTH
   // Lisa