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Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems?
by Max Fancher
on
May 2, 2008 at 5:34:54 pm
Hi there,
So I have this annoying situation... I compress a video I've created in FCP with Sorenson Squeeze to a .flv and preview it with "Sorensonflvplayer" and it looks fine. Then, I use Dreamweaver CS3 to add the file to my site. When I preview it (or view the published page) there are two or three of these tiny little vertical and horizontal lines that ever so slightly distort the image. You especially see it when there's a logo with a hard edge that gets jagged in just that one place where the line intersects. The lines are invisible, they just skew the image below them... I thought it might be something to do with the "pixel aspect ratio" but the video is 480x270 and I have Dreamweaver auto detect the size.
So, I guess my questions are:
1) Am I doing something wrong or is there some way to prevent these lines from showing up.
2) Is it possible this a dreamweaver thing and if so there a better way to add videos without using their skins and player?
Thanks in advance for your help. Any thoughts would be helpful.
Max
p.s. here's an example... if you pause it when the logo first appears, you'll see the horizontal on the "s" and "g" in the logo.
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems? by mike velte on May 2, 2008 at 7:04:10 pm
I see what appears to be compression artifacts (the lines) during camera motion or panning. Motion is the enemy of compression and camera movement causes every pixel to change with every frame, overloading the bitrate.
Now if it played fine in the Sorenson player forget about the above. Make sure your player's dimensions match that of the cell without any padding.
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems? by Max Fancher on May 2, 2008 at 7:39:52 pm
Thanks for the response Mike! It did play fine in the player before i loaded it onto my site with Dreamweaver.
I may have artifacts due to motion but that's a separate issue. ;-) What I'm talking about are lines that are fixed on the player window. There appear to be three horizontal ones that divide the height into fourths, and there are vertical lines as well.
I threw a screenshot of the issue up on my site...
These lines are persistent and locked so they stay in the exact place from scene to scene. And, they don't exist when i view the piece with sorenson's player.
Let me know if anyone has experienced this before.
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems? by mike velte on May 3, 2008 at 11:21:54 am
We are talking about the same artifacts. I still think they are induced by the compression. Try re-encoding at a resolution that is divisible by 16 (height and width).
They may also be due to interlacing. Video for the web should be shot progressive.
Also try using H264 in your page...Flash now supports it and it is much better than ON2 VP6.
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems? by Ed Dooley on May 3, 2008 at 3:34:16 pm
Mike, Do you think it's ok to start using H.264 in Flash yet? I'm waiting for maybe a year
or so for general acceptance. If I have a specific client who I know has the latest Flash I may use it, but the penetration is probably fairly minimal at this early date.
Ed
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems? by Max Fancher on May 3, 2008 at 9:56:10 pm
Hey Mike,
I'll look into the H264 idea. Thanks for that link.
I've been using Sorenson Squeeze for my compression and I've set the Width divisible by 16 (480) but the height divisible by 9 (270). When you say "height and width" both divisible by 16, should I have my height set differently?
Thanks for sticking with me on this one, I'm desperate to find a solution.
The strange part is that it does look fine in the Sorenson player and the lines only show up when I load it onto my site with Dreamweaver and preview it in the browser or when it's actually live. Do you think the player that Dreamweaver uses could have ANYTHING to do with it?
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert->media->flash video..." cause problems? by mike velte on May 4, 2008 at 11:37:59 am
Both dimensions should be dividable by 16 for maximum codec efficiency.
I dont think Dreamweaver is doing anything to the data in the video file. I am concerned about the cell that the video is in, it's dimensions and padding relative to the size of the video and player interface.
I would also try another version with a very small amount of motion blur, like 1 or 2 px with a 90' direction to smooth the horizontal lines.
Re: Does Dreamweaver's "Insert flash video..." cause problems? by Max Fancher on May 5, 2008 at 5:23:09 pm
I did a few more tests and i've been able to isolate the problem. i have two pages that play the same video but with different players. the Dreamweaver player is giving me the lines and the "FlowPlayer" is not.
