dw cs5 FLV video quality difference between web play and local play w/same flv file

[Centroid CNC]

When I play a flv locally on my pc with adobe media player.. it looks great.

i build a page, insert it in the page (dw cs5) use auto size detect. upload all..

then go to test it out using FF and the video is not a sharp ( the text titles are especially ratty looking  http://www.centroidcnc.com/cncvideo/centroid_digitizing_cs5.html ).

how can this be? its the same file.  what am i doing wrong? thanks in advance for any tips.

here is a screen capture of the 480 wide flv playing in adobe media player... reasonable text clarity

and the same file playing in firefox.. with rattly looking text.

is the browser trying to scale it up or something?

[Ken_Binney]

Linked playback looks great on my FF, much more precise than either of your screencaps.

[Centroid CNC]

thanks for the feedback.  puzzled as to why..

i'm trying out the jwplayer..seems promising

[Guest]

While you're trying out JW Player keep in mind that a commercial license is required for commercial use. Since you are using the player to sell items and/or services a commercial license is required. The watermark on the player indicates that you are not using a commercial license. What you're doing now is equivalent to someone trying out one of your milling machines and then afterwards deciding never to return it or compensate you but simply say looks nice, seems promising while continuing to use the service without proper compensation.

best,

Shocker

[Centroid CNC]

yep.. read all that on the website.. just testing it..the page is not linked to anything

the video doesn't work with iphone safari, any hints?

[Guest]

crazykeith wrote:

yep.. read all that on the website.. just testing it..the page is not linked to anything

the video doesn't work with iphone safari, any hints?

The hint is in your source:

/cncvideo/c_dig_480.flv

Solution: use a video format that is supported on the iPhone.

[Centroid CNC]

ok..thanks major misunderstanding on my part.. i thought it was the player.not the flv that

was the problem. thanks for the correction.

[adninjastrator]

Test page looks pretty good but you still have dimension problems.... notice the black bars on the side of the video. Black bars on the sides mean the height is not great enough. Because that version of the player has the controls below the video, you have to ADD that number of pixels to the height.

height: 360, width: 480

so width needs to be video height (360) PLUS height of controls ...15 or 20 or so... may need the trial and error thing again.

The JW Player will play mp4s on the iPhone.

I'd suggest using QuickTime Pro to convert. QT Pro has an excellent "Export for Web" option that exports beautiful video (m4v).

QT will open many file types but if you only have the .flv version, you can use Handbrake to convert to .mov or .mp4:

http://handbrake.fr/

It's free and does a pretty good job. But I still do the final convertion with QT because the finish video comes out so nice.

For example:

http://exploreolympics.com/reports/?p=3499

videos play in iPhone as well as PCs (JW Player with controls over video)

Check for other/newer version of player with controls over video.

Of course JW Player is just one of many media players available. FlowPlayer is another:

http://flowplayer.org/

or get a Flash developer to create one for you... as on the Home page here:

http://www.exploreolympics.com/index.html

This page uses our custom Flash player with fallback to the JW PLayer (using swfobject).

So there are many solutions to your problem, but the reason the text is fuzzy is that the video dimensions are not correct.

Best wishes,

Adninjastrator

[Centroid CNC]

thanks for taking the time to write all  that up.

i added 15 to the height and it looks good.

i've also output some .mp4 test files (with Pr using the apple ipod settings)

so let me ask you a dumb question, if FLV doesn't work with apple...  and mp4

works with both apple and windows (+linux?)...then why would anyone want to use FLV?

[adninjastrator]

Well I can't answer for everyone but as it stands right now, custom Flash players offer the ability to skin your player anyway you want.... which is really not the case with the QuickTime player or even the JW Player. You can't do this:

http://www.sqis.net/

vid player side side....

or this:

http://www.serenityfarmthemovie.com/

custom skin...or this, walk-on video that interacts with another background video.

http://www.mrfilmbiz.com/

So the .flv and it's mp4 version, the f4v allow uses of Flash the ability to develop custom skins as well as add interactivity to videos using what are called Flash cue points... instruction that can be embedded directly into the video file which can fire off various events at certain times in the video (text pop-ups, external animations, start/stop a second or third video, etc..

But they are all just tools... some tools work better for some jobs than others. It's not that one is always better than another, it' just that sometimes one tool will accomplish that particular job better than another.

Best wishes,

Adninjastrator

[adninjastrator]

Almost always when you see fuzzy or distorted text in a video, it's because the video is be displayed at a different display size than it was created in.

Imagine each frame as a bitmap... or a jpg file. If you display that .jpg file at some other resolution than the original, the program displaying the image has to extrapolate pixels, guessing what it might look like when the display size is increase. This is true with video because video frames are bitmaps, NOT vector images, which can scale up and down without quality deteriorating.

So the reason for the fuzziness is that it's not diaplaying in the correct dimensions.

The native dimensions of yuor video are 480 x 360.

But the video is displaying at slightly off those dimensions. When you first start the video, you will see black lines at the top and bottom of the video. Since the video player wants to maintain the correct aspect ratio of the video 4:3, it will leave space on the top/bottom or on the sides if the display dimensions constrain in any way displaying the video in it original aspect ratio.

Black lines are showing on the top and bottom because the display is not wide enough. If the display width was just slightly larger, then the video would also display just a little taller, filling those black spaces at the top and bottom.

This would also make the text display a little crisper, since it would be closer to the original display dimensions.

In your embed code, play with the width and height dimensions.

Your current dimensions are:

width="502" height="411"

test with the width of 600, leave the height the same... notice where the black spaces are.

then test with a height of 500, leaving the width at 502, notice where the black spaces are.

once you have a feel for what dimensions changes do, go back to your original dimensions and fine tune until there are no black spaced top/bottom or sides and the text looks crisp in both browsers.

Best of luck!

Adninjastrator

[Centroid CNC]

great.. thanks for the tip.

I was using the auto size feature in DW to set the size of the player.  Does this mean i should not to use the auto size and perform the size by trial and error? thanks.

[adninjastrator]

Well if the auto size method doesn't work, yes, I'd suggest a little trial and error.

This is sometimes the only way to get it perfect when you are "skinning" the video player. If you had no skin that displays controls or a frame around the outside of the video, or the controls display over the top of the video (and fade in/out), then you can just set the display dimensions to exactly 480 x 360 and it would work perfectly. But because you are skinning the player with a frame around the video, you have to add those extra pixels to compensate for that frame.

Another option of course would be to use a player that has no skin (frame) and has the controls display over the top of the videos.

Here is an example of a video player (JW Player) set to the exact dimensions of the video, 400 x 300 with controls displayed over the video. I used a <div> to put sort of a frame around the video:

http://exploreolympics.com/reports/?p=3499

Here is an example of a player with playlist that I had to trial and error to set height and to get to fit just so-so on the page:

http://www.nickbeststrongman.com/liberty_11.html

So don't feel bad if you have to do a little trial and error for the best results.

Best wishes,

Adninjastrator

[Centroid CNC]

thanks for that..

i went and tried the jw player.. looks nice.

here is the same video with the jwpalyer set to the same size as the video 480x360

http://www.centroidcnc.com/cncvideo/centroid_digitizing_jw.html

looks like a good solution.