Getting started with Flash Video

Many businesses and entrepreneurs are finding that video content can be a valuable addition to their websites.

Flash Video, popularized by YouTube, offers an ideal, user-friendly way to deliver that video content.

Fortunately, getting your video content into the Flash Video format (FLV) and displaying it on your website is not a difficult task.

Creating Flash Videos

Once you have your video content in a common file format (i.e. AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, etc.), you'll need software to get it into the FLV format.

If you have a new version of Flash, you can do this from within Flash itself.

Otherwise, you'll need conversion software. The following programs enable you to convert common file formats into FLV format:

• Flash Video MX Pro
• Flix Standard and Flix Pro
• Riva FLV Encoder (Free)
• Video Encoder for Adobe Flash

I personally use the Flix products, which support the On2 VP6-E and Sorenson Spark (H.263) codecs for higher-quality video.

Displaying Flash Videos

Once you have your FLV video files, you'll need a player so that you can embed them in your website.

Some of the programs above come with players, but here are some popular FLV players:

• Flowplayer (Free)
• JavaScript PHP FLV Player
• JW FLV Media Player (Free)
• OS FLV (Free)
• Sonettic Cinema HD Player (Free and Paid)
• Web FLV Player

That's all there is to it!

For more technical tips and resources, be sure to check out Jeroen Wijering's primer on FLV video compression.