If QuickTime 7 for Macintosh, QuickTime 6.5 for Windows, or DirectX 9 or later (Windows only) is installed on your system, you can import video clips in several file formats, including MOV, AVI, and MPG/MPEG. You can import linked video clips in MOV format.

Flash documents with embedded video can be published as SWF files. Flash documents with linked video must be published in QuickTime format.

The following video file formats are supported for importing embedded video if QuickTime 7 is installed on your Macintosh computer:

The following video file formats are supported for importing embedded video if DirectX 9 or later is installed (Windows only):

By default, Flash imports and exports video using the On2 VP 6 codec. A codec is a compression-decompression algorithm that controls how multimedia files are compressed during encoding, and decompressed during playback.

If you attempt to import a file format that is not supported on your system, a warning message appears that the operation cannot be completed. In some cases, Flash might import the video but not the audio in a file. For example, audio is not supported in MPG and MPEG files imported with QuickTime 7 on Mac OS. In such cases, a warning indicates that the audio portion of the file cannot be imported. You can import the video without sound.