In this tutorial, you will build a basic high-definition demo that you can deploy through the web using existing broadband technologies. A full in-house solution would require a team of developers with video production, ActionScript programming, and IT experience to stream content over your own Flash Media Server installation. Streaming services are also readily available, which allow longer program lengths without the need of an in-house server. Shorter program length can still function through progressive download from a standard HTTP protocol, although preload time can be considerably longer.

Flash developers with advanced ActionScript programming skills can follow the sidebar written by Adobe support engineer Ken Toley, and use it as a springboard for building full, rich media, high-definition demos.

Using this article, right-brained multimedia developers with at least intermediate video and Macromedia Captivate/Flash experience can use Ken's code like a black box and put together simpler demos without the aid of IT or software engineers. Be aware, however, that you will be working with some code and need to know enough about ActionScript to make the modifications required to get this project functioning with your own resources.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Adobe Captivate

• Try
• Buy

Flash Professional 8 or Flash MX Professional 2004

• Try
• Buy

Flash Media Server (required for streaming files)

• Try
• Buy

Tutorials and sample files:

• cp_video_resources.zip (ZIP, 2.3 MB)
• cp_video_solution.zip (ZIP, 3.2 MB)

Background for This Tutorial

When I first saw Macromedia Captivate and Flash MX 2004, I wanted to be able to create sales demos for our company's software. I quickly began using Macromedia Captivate to record screens in our software as a way to automate the process of capturing and editing, but there was no easy way to get the content synced to the accompanying Flash video of our spokesperson, which was an important part of our project requirements.

Enter Adobe Flash Player quality assurance engineer Kenneth Toley, who took the potential of the two products and linked them with a few elegant lines of code. CollegeNET has successfully implemented this basic setup to create a series of demos that cover all the basic concepts of our scheduling software. Since launching the content in spring 2005, the demos have been viewed over 5000 times, freeing our sales staff to answer higher level questions and give more personal attention to each client.

Why Wait for Blue Ray DVDs When HD Delivery on the Web Is Here

Soon it will be possible to author high-definition (HD) content on the new DVD formats, but there will be few authoring tools and consumer players in this field. For now, consider the following web delivery option (see Figure 1):

1. Macromedia Captivate records simple Flash objects instead of endless bitmap frames to obtain pristine 800 x 600 screen captures in a remarkably small file footprint.
2. Flash video allows a real-time stream of video of a talking head at least 200 x 150 with very good quality picture and sound.
3. Place both in a Flash project to create the skin and you have a 1024 x 768 HD demo environment right in the browser.

Figure 1. The Macromedia Captivate.swf screen preloads and waits for resync script (1). The Flash video starts, utilizing the full broadband bandwidth (2). The interface skin can be over 1024 x 768 but generally should be slightly smaller to allow for the browser chrome on smaller laptop displays (3).

View Macromedia Captivate demonstration: High-Definition Web Demonstration

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