Using the FLVPlayback Component

The FLVPlayback component lets you easily include a video player in your Adobe Flash CS4 Professional application to play progressively downloaded video files over HTTP, or streaming video files from Adobe’s Macromedia Flash Media Server, or from a Flash Video Streaming Service (FVSS).

With the release of Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3 (version 9.0.115.0 or later), significant improvements for playing video content in Flash Player have been incorporated. This update includes changes to the FLVPlayback component that take advantage of the end user's system video hardware to provide better video playback performance. The changes to the FLVPlayback component also increase the fidelity of video files displayed in full-screen mode.

Additionally, Flash Player 9 Update 3 improves the functionality of the FLVPlayback component by adding support for the high-definition MPEG-4 video formats that utilize industry standard H.264 encoding. These formats include MP4, M4A, MOV, MP4V, 3GP, and 3G2.

Note: Protected MP4 files—such as those downloaded from Apple® iTunes® or digitally encrypted by FairPlay®—are not supported.

The easy-to-use FLVPlayback component has the following characteristics and benefits:

  • Can be dragged to the Stage and implemented quickly and successfully

  • Supports full-screen size

  • Provides a collection of predesigned skins that allow you to customize the appearance of its playback controls

  • Allows you to select color and alpha values for predesigned skins

  • Allows advanced users to create their own skins

  • Provides live preview during authoring

  • Provides layout properties to keep the video file centered when resizing

  • Allows start of playback when enough of a progressively downloaded video file has downloaded

  • Provides cue points that allow you to synchronize your video with text, graphics, and animation

  • Maintains a reasonably sized SWF file