slideshow of images and videos

[nila]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me how to create a Flash applet that with play videos and static images in the same slide show.


Video will be FLV encoded, images will be PNG.

Data items will have an attribute telling whether they are images
or videos.
Order of data format will be relevant to the order they are
displayed.
Will show videos and images in sequential order with a 1 second
cross fade between them.
Image display length is not determined at this point, but I may
just attach another "time_length" attribute to the data feed.
After playing them all, it should cross fade from the last item
to the first item in the list and continue to loop.
No player actions, events, thumbnails, or anything required, just
a player.

Thanx.
Nila

[Eye for Video]

Well there are a number of ways this could be done. The very simplest would be to use a video editing program to just create one video, which happens to have both video and stills in it.
From there it gets a little more complicated. Are the videos and images coming in from a .xml file that will change over time or will the playlist be static? How many videos and images? Do you want the downloading to continue even though the viewer may not be watching but may have scrolled to another part of the page. So there are no Play/Stop controls for the viewer?
What's your expereince with Flash, Have you ever created a Flash video player or a Flash slideshow? or are you looking for an off the shelf solution?
Best wishes,
Eye for Video
www.cidigitalmedia.com

[nila]

Videos and images are coming in from a .xml file, yes the downloading will continue in looping playback.

I have very little experience with Flash, the most i've done is the intro page in www.friendsofhospiceottawa.ca. That's it.

[Eye for Video]

Well the easiest way is still to create one big video which has the still images in it. Use a good video editing software like Adobe Premiere Elements to do the editing. Then create a .flv video player or use the Flash FLVPlayback component to play the video.
If you decide not to go that route then you have to tackle the problem that the Flash .flv video player does not play still photos. And regular Flash slide shows do not play video. They are each very different and separate creations.
But you can create your own Flash application that will switch back and forth between the video player and the slide show seamlessly.
First, learn how to create your own custom video player which uses the NetStream, not the FLVPlayback component. Here are a couple sources for good tutorials:
www.gotoandlearn.com
and
www.flashkit.com
While you are there look for and work thru the .xml photo slideshow tutorials as well, since you will need to know how to create both. Once you have working models of both, then you can start to combine them.
So basically what you will do is to have a video player in frame 1. When it finishes playing the video it will gotoAndPlay frame 2 which will display the still image. When it finishes it will gotoAndPlay frame 3, which is video... and so on. As the action moves along, each frame is getting its data from one element of the xml file.
I've combined stills and videos in (what looks like) the same "Player" several times and it works just fine. Here's an example. The first 2 selections in the player are photo slide shows while the 3rd selection is a video.
http://www.marunde-muscle.com/media_...ia_player.html
But you do need to know how to create the pieces. Just take it one step at a time. Learn to create a video player first, then a slide show. Post back again after you get that far if you need help on moving from one frame to the next.
Best wishes,
Eye for Video
www.cidigitalmedia.com