Universal Web Video Compression to FLV

Are you sick of having to download many players?  Many sites like youtube utilize FLASH.  I wanted to figure this out for my own site.  I have gone the Semi-Free way, which always takes some time…  Here are the steps.

You will need three pieces of software, that are open source.  Start downloading them from the various sites:

1. 7Zip compression software
   1. A new high compression software to replace zip
   2. Download this and install it
   3. 7-Zip Compression
2. FFMPEG – Converts your video file to FLV
   1. Flash video is the key to the player problem, as it’s installed on 99% of browsers!
   2. You can read about it here: ffMpeg Converter
   3. Its very geeky, but ill make it a little easier with a simple Batch file
   4. Download the file here: FFmPeg download

                                                              i.      Grab the one with the most recent Date

5. Unzip it with the 7Zip software above
2. A Web Player – JW FLV Player
1. It’s a player that’s free for personal sites and cheap for commercial
2. It’s very extensible
3. FLV Media Player Download
3. Update IIS to stream FLV
1. Add a mime time for FLV
2. Set it to: flv-application/octet-stream
3. See notes: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_19439

Conversion Steps

I moved the FFMPEG.exe to a know location, like

c:\program files\VideoCompression

I then move the video file to that directory, like input.avi.

Then I run this from the command line:

Ffmpeg.exe  -i input.mov -ar 22050 -ab 32000 -aspect 4:3  -b 2000 -r 12 -f flv -s 320x240 -ac 2 output2.flv

Publishing

After you generate your file, output.flv, you can then edit your html page and include the JW FLV Player.  Look at the readme.html example that comes with it, when you unzip it.

• Place the support objects in a known location on the web server.
• Reference the Javascript file first
• There are many options and also a great configurator on the author’s website.
  • Flash Video Player Configurator

<div id="container">

<a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">Get the Flash Player</a> to see this player.</div>

      <script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>

      <script type="text/javascript">

var s1 = new SWFObject("mediaplayer.swf","mediaplayer","300","185","8");

            s1.addParam("allowfullscreen","true");

            s1.addVariable("width","300");

            s1.addVariable("height","185");

            s1.addVariable("file","output.flv");

            s1.write("container");

      </script>

Good Luck!

More Tips

Video Compression Tutorial

Embedding Flash Tutorial