It’s that time of year again; my annual pilgrimage back to Michigan for the March for Babies walk. My family walks every year in memory of my niece Jessica, who left us too early at age 2, nearly 11 years ago.

So, if I’ve helped you sort out a video problem or pointed you in the right direction, consider giving a couple of bucks to Team Jessica. Just click on the widget in the sidebar to the right!

Thanks

FOTB is going punk, as you can see from this year’s banners (just there, down and to your right)… so get ready! This year is going to be as jam-packed as ever with great speakers, inspiring content, and, of course plenty of beer and chips.

Soooper-dooper early bird tickets go on sale May 18, and be sure to sign up for the newsletter for reminders and updates:
http://Flashonthebeach.com

It’s a bit earlier this year, Sept. 20-23rd, so the weather in Brighton should be great. Since I missed it last year, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s one of the few conferences I’ll be speaking at this year, since I now have a little one in tow. Hope to see you there!

In their ongoing effort to encourage more women to get involved in the Flash community (an initiative near and dear to my heart) the organizers of Flash in the Can are sponsoring a contest to send 100 women to FitC Toronto.

FITC Toronto 2009 (website)
The Design & Technology Festival
April 25-28, 2009 // Hilton Toronto. Canada

So, if you are one of those talented, underrepresented women, tell them so in a video post or Flash animation WHY you want to go to FitC Toronto!

To Enter, just complete the form and send them the link to your video. The first 100 entries they get will receive a free festival ticket to FITC Toronto 2009! It’s that easy!

Don’t miss out; FitC Toronto is a world-class event. I’m regrettably missing it this year, but you, GO! REPRESENT!

I just wrapped up a live breeze session with the Adobe Flash Media Server online user group. It was a lively session with lots of questions and a great turnout. The recording and sample files are posted. Here are some links:

http://groups.adobe.com/posts/7d8b9e44f8

Also, you can join the online FMS user group here:

http://www.tinyurl.com/adobefmsug/

People are doing some great things with my Flash411 and Adobe Developer Connection tutorials. Here’s one project by Tom Cipriano, a playlist of videos from the 93rd Annual Pennsylvania Farm Show. Enjoy!

http://www.thirdfloorsolutions.com/fs/videoplaylist.html

A fake Flash Player upgrade is being used to cloak a nasty piece of malware.

Be on the lookout for email that looks like a news item linking you to a video. The page then prompts you to download an ‘updated’ version of the Flash Player.

Bastards!

Information here: http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/obamaspeech.asp

I often hear complaints about a steep learning curve in developing FMS applications, and the lack of good sample code and simple administration utilities. Well, complain no more! Adobe has released a suite of free tools to help you get started and be more productive, announced on FMS Product Manager Kevin Towes’ blog. Here’s what you have to work with:

FLVCheck Tool: Let’s you verify that a video will run properly on FMS. Supports MP4 and FLV files.
FMSCheck Tool: Provides information about whether the server is running or not, its response time, and if any FMS core processes are not responding.
AS3 Dynamic Streaming Class: Enable mulitbitrate delivery easily in Flash CS4, Flex 3 or the Flex SDK.
FLVPlayback 2.5: The updated version of the FLVPlayback component for use in Flash CS4, with increased performance and quality for both video on demand files and live streams. Features “significant” bug fixes for streaming and support for Dynamic Streaming and DVR functionality with FMS 3.5. Only compatible with ActionScript 3.0. You can now use these classes in Flex 3 or the Flex SDK, in addition to Flash CS4.
F4V Post Processor: FMS 3.5 and later and Flash Media Live Encoder 3 can record content in MPEG-4 format using “fragments” or “moof atoms.” Some tools and players do not support this, and therefore will not be able to recognize these FMS-created files. This tool takes the information from all of the moof atoms and combines it into a single moove atom and outputs a new file. Use for prepping videos for editing in Premiere, HTTP delivery, or for playback in Adobe Media Player. Windows or Linux only.

You do need to register with Adobe.com (if you haven’t already) for access, but its free, as are all of the tools.

Yes, the day is finally here! Flash Media Server 3 and Flash Media Live Encoder 3.0 have been officially released.

Download Flash Media Server 3.5 (free developer version)

Download Flash Media Live Encoder 3.0 (FREE)

Flash Media Server 3.5 offers some powerful new features such as improved H.264 performance, “DVR” functionality, Dynamic Streaming, and HTTP delivery (Apache server built in). For more info, visit http://www.adobe.com/go/fms.

The licensing costs have stayed the same, at $4,500 for Flash Media Interactive Server and $999 for Flash Media Streaming Server. The Developer edition is still free, and allows 10 simultaneous connections (can be used for commercial deployments).

Flash Media Live Encoder has also been upgraded, with support for multiple bitrate encoding (to take advantage of Dynamic Streaming in FMS 3.5), an updated user interface, enhanced auto-adjust capabilities to accommodate fluctuation in your connection when encoding, and improved file and stream management including file “chunking”.

Big day for Flash media — happy downloading!

Adobe evangelist Serge Jespers has outlined some of the most common myths about deploying video on the Flash Platform. I’ve run into these arguments often, so thought I’d pass on the link.

http://www.webkitchen.be/2008/12/23/8-misconceptions-about-flash-video/

cheers, and happy christmas!
// Lisa

You may have noticed I’ve been pretty scarce for the past few weeks; as you may have guessed, Leela Grace has finally arrived. I went into labor on Wednesday, November 12th (good thing I decided not to attend FlashCodersNY that night!) and gave birth to “little” 8lb. 3oz. Leela at 4:33am. Everyone’s healthy (though sleep-deprived) and I plan to return to “active duty” early in 2009. I’ll try to keep up with comments and questions, but if it takes me a bit longer to reply, you’ll know why!

p.s. Yes, that is an Adobe t-shirt… finally found a use for all those Xtra large shirts, hehe.