Flash Video Encoder User Guide

Flash Video Encoder User Guide > Encoding video with Flash Video Encoder

Encoding video with Flash Video Encoder

By default, Flash Video Encoder encodes source videos using the On2 VP6 codec, which is compatible with Flash Player 8 and later. The Flash Video Encoder uses the Sorenson Spark codec to encode video for Flash Player 7.

When configuring encoding settings, you can select individual files and specify different settings based on the type of video format and quality required for each file, or you can select multiple files and specify the same settings for all of them.

To encode video with the Flash Video Encoder:

1. Start Flash Video Encoder by selecting Start > All Programs > Adobe Flash Video Encoder (Windows), or open the folder that contains the Adobe Flash Video Encoder application, and double click the application icon (Macintosh).
2. In the Flash Video Encoder, add source video clips to the list of files to encode. You can drag a file into the list, or click the Add button and select a file on your computer.

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   You can select multiple video files and drag them into the list of files to encode.

3. Click Settings (Edit > Encoding Settings) to display the Flash Video Encoding Settings dialog box.

   Flash provides several pre-configured encoding profiles that you can use to encode your video. In the Encoding panel, you can select an encoding profile to determine the level of compression to be applied to the video clip.

   The encoding profiles are based on the Flash Player version for which you intend to publish content and the data rate at which you want your video content to be encoded. If you choose an encoding profile using Flash Player 8, the On2 VP6 video codec is used to encode the video. If you choose an encoding profile using Flash Player 7, the Sorenson Spark video codec is used to encode the video.

   For information on advanced video encoding settings, see Specifying video encoding settings.

4. Verify that the encoding profile you've selected is appropriate for your intended application. The text box below the Flash Video Encoding Profile pop-up menu displays the Flash Player version, video codec, video bit rate, and audio encoding information for the selected encoding profile.
5. Enter a filename for the encoded FLV file. If you don't specify a filename, Flash Video Encoder uses the filename of the source video clip. When naming a file, do not enter the .flv extension; Flash Video Encoder does this automatically.

   You can specify a destination folder in which to save the encoded FLV file relative to the folder containing the source video clip. When specifying a destination folder:

   • The destination folder you specify must already exist. If you specify a folder that does not exist, an error message informs you that the file cannot be encoded because the folder cannot be found.
   • When specifying a folder, you must separate the folder name and the filename using either a forward slash (/) or backward slash (\) (Windows), or a forward slash (/) (Macintosh).

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   You can specify a folder in which to save encoded files using the Flash Video Encoder Preferences. For more information, see Setting Flash Video Encoder preferences.

6. Do one of the following:
   • Click Settings to further adjust the encoding settings, embed cue points, or to modify the video clip's size or playback length using the crop and trim controls.
   • Click OK to close the Flash Video Encoding Settings dialog box.
7. Click Start Queue to begin encoding your files.

   Flash Video Encoder starts encoding the first file in the video encoding list. While a file is being encoded, the Status column of the video encoding list provides information on the status of each video:

   Encoding indicates that the file is currently being encoded. Flash Video Encoder encodes only one file at a time.

   Waiting indicates that the file is in the encoding queue but has not been encoded. You can remove a file from the queue that has not been encoded or that is not being encoded. For more information, see Removing files from the encoding queue.

   Skip indicates that the file will be skipped during the encoding process. You can choose to skip files or change their status to Waiting. For more information, see Skipping a file.

   
   
   The Encoding Complete icon indicates that the specified file has been successfully encoded.

   
   
   The Error icon indicates that Flash Video Encoder encountered an error when attempting to encode the specified file, or that the user canceled the encoding process while the file was being encoded. Errors are recorded to a log file.

   If you exit and restart Flash Video Encoder, or if you stop and restart the queue, a dialog box appears that lets you select the file to encode.

8. The FLV encoded files are saved to the same folder as the source video files with a .flv file extension to identify them. If you encode the same file more than once, an incremental number is appended to the filename for each additional encoding.

Flash CS3