Flash

Traditionally, flash has been embedded using the <embed> element. However, now people are using javascript.

Flash still has a role but it is not as important as it was at one point. It is mainly used to host video and audio now.

The most popular way to include flash is via the SWFObject javascript library. It is good because it allows for showing alternative content if a browser doesn’t support javascript.

The embedding of the flash object happens in the script. For examples, look at http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/

We may need to encode, changing a video from one format to another, to be able to show it on the internet.

The default way of serving video should be through Youtube or Vimeo. But if that doesn’t work, then make sure to use the following guidelines.

The best practice right now is to server with HTML5, and then, if the browser can’t support the <video> tag, offer a flash version of the movie. This means that we should have video in two different formats: WebM and MP4.

Preparing a flash video for a site

1. convert video into flv format

2. find a flv player

3. include the video and player in your page.

Preparing video for HTML5 presentation

1. You must provide support for HTML 5 and flash, for the users who can’t support H5

2. HTML5 doesn’t support any kind of DRM

3. Not all browsers support the same formats. You must provide version in H264 and WebM

And example of the markup for <video> http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/video/basics/

Audio

1. use a hosted solution, such as soundcloud or myspace.com

2. use flash

3. use html5 <audio>

Tomorrow I am going to be traveling, but I will see if I can at least get a bit of the CSS chapter.