The power of the Flash Platform part 3: Video
Remember the “old” days where you had to struggle with bandwidth selectors, video player choices and codec nightmares before you could watch a video online? I know it’s kind of a bold statement, but Flash really did change all that and the continuously increasing Flash Video market share proves that. I also often hear people complain about the quality of Flash Video. Most of the time, these people don’t know that Flash Player can actually play high definition video up to 1080p using the H.264 industry standard video codec.
But Flash Video is about more than just video. With Flash, you can easily make your video interactive. A piece of video in a Flash project is just like any other visual object. You can animate it, change it’s dimensions, layer it with other videos, make it interactive, … Heck… You can even personalize it. No other web technology currently available on 99% of all Internet-connected PCs is able to do this. And bloggers who claim otherwise should get their facts straight. (Are you reading this TechCrunch?)
Flash Video is everywhere and sites like YouTube, Vimeo and many other like it would not be as popular today without Flash Video! Traditional media companies like the New York Times, CNN, ABC, MSNBC also use Flash for the delivery of their video content. Hollywood studios use it on Hulu and the recently announced Epix site.
But like I said, Flash Video isn’t just about playing on demand video. Lots of people also use it for live video every day. Sites like UStream, Justin.tv, Qik and FlixWagon allow users to quickly setup a live video stream and stream it to hundreds of viewers. Ever sent a recorded video message to someone on FaceBook or Tokbox?
So how about interactive video? There are tons of amazing examples out there! Remember the immensely popular Elf Yourself campaign? Or what about those really cool augmented reality cases? Augmented reality is actually another great example of how Flash changes the web. AR has been around for years now but it wasn’t until the recent availability of the FLARToolkit that the technology was used online and even in campaigns for big brands like Doritos, Jack Link’s and Microsoft.
Flash on!
Personalized Flash video
In my freelancing years, I had the pleasure of doing a couple of personalized Flash video projects. This is probably one of the most effective ways of capturing an audience. Shoot a piece of video and personalize it with either the recipient’s name or the sender’s name. This is one of the many reasons why I love Flash so much. Before Flash video, doing something like this was totally unthinkable. And it’s really not that hard to do. You add a cue-point to the frame you want to add interaction to and when one of those cue-points gets fired, you just add the appropriate action.
This new viral (by Paltalk) is one of the more creative personalized Flash video projects that I’ve seen.
Obama? McCain? How about a Jespers in the White House? Click on the video to view it or watch it on News3Online.com.
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