What am I doing wrong here?
by Tim Flora
on
Jan 13, 2009 at 7:01:14 pm
Hi, I am relatively new to Flash but I've done a little reading and am trying to do something relatively simple (at least I think). I have an .flv file I created in Flash encoder from a QT movie. I want to put a skin on it in flash, then embed the .swf in my website. so here's what I've done and it is not working. it creates a space in the post were the movie should go but there's no skin, no controls, no movie.
Here's where I am:
Opened flash project, dragged a "FLVPlayback" component to the stage, then under the properties selected the skin and the local directory of the .flv file. I also made the stage match the size of the .flv file (400x300 in this case).
I previewed it and everything looked fine. I then did a File> Export> Export Movie to a folder on the desktop. This created a .swf file (which I had named "fittofill.swf") along with a "ClearOverAll.swf" which I assume are the controls. When I click on the "fittofill.swf" it opens up just fine and I can see the controls, see the movie, etc.
So I then uploaded the three files (2 .swfs and the .flv) to my website FTP under a folder called "flash". I then used the following html coding on my webpage, but it's not working when I preview the posts. Any thoughts on what's happening here?
Re: What am I doing wrong here? by Graham Quince on Jan 14, 2009 at 7:36:33 pm
I can't see your code, but at a guess I'd say it's that the html only calls up the swf file from the folder. For that player to call up the skin and flv, you need to create a folder called 'flash' on your hard drive next to fittofill.swf, then drop the ClearOverAll.swf and the flv into that folder and repoint the custom skin & the flv urls to that folder.
The html code comes first, so what may be happening is that the swf is pulled up to the same level as that code, flash then uses that folder level to look for the flv, which of course is stuck in the flash folder. Have you also got the .js code? That needs to be above the flash folder too.
Hope that helps.
Graham
www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus - Free FX for amateur films
Re: What am I doing wrong here? by Tim Flora on Jan 14, 2009 at 7:56:29 pm
every time I paste the code in the COW message it sees it as .html and tries to embed the file - oh well.
I did a little more testing and was able to get the file to embed when it was hosted on my other web server (a directory with the .flv and .swf). with the EXACT same file structure I was not able to replicate it when changing the paths/domain to the server in question.
the difference that I can see is the working host is Windows (economy plan through GoDaddy) and the other is Linux (free hosting through GoDaddy). i would still think that Linux would understand .flv. In fact in my most recent test I was able to get the skin to come up but the movie would not play on the Linux. would play off the windows, same situation, same movie. still don't get it.
I figured it out! by Tim Flora on Jan 16, 2009 at 5:37:00 am
ok, after much research I figured out what was happening and I can now verify that I'm not crazy. The Linux server did not have a MIME file type for .flv/.swf files so it was not seeing them properly. This can be created by making a .htaccess file and placing it in the directory where all the .flv/.swf files reside. it worked right away after doing this. use Notepad and make sure word wrap is turned off. then make sure the file is named .htaccess and is uploaded using ASCII transfer mode. this is the content that needs to go into the file.
Re: I figured it out! by Tim Flora on Jan 27, 2009 at 6:05:09 am
another follow up note...
the new hosting provider I chose, InMotion, had all the MIME file types preloaded on their server. They also had the correct RSS feed generation headers built in.
GoDaddy did not have the .swf MIME header and it was creating an error on the RSS feeds from my wordpress webpage.
so bottom line is, the web host can cause problems even if you are doing everything correct.
Re: I figured it out! by Hrvoje Mesec on May 19, 2009 at 8:01:47 pm
Hello, i have the same problem as you, when i try to play my swf video files on the godaddy servers, they won't play, i have tried everything, even putting the .htaccess file like you said but nothing happens. could it be that i made the flv files wrong in flash? they play locally but on server nothing..:(((
