Exporting and Publishing Movies

Exporting is different from publishing. Exporting means that you convert your movie (or a frame from it) to a file format other than Flash. Exporting into some formats will not include the sound files in the exported movie. Publishing converts your Flash movie to the Flash Player format. In a sense, it is compiled. All files incorporated into your movie (such as bitmaps and sound) are combined into the Flash Player file.

Exporting movies

You can export your movies just as you imported images into them. Why would you want to export a movie? There are at least two reasons. First, you might want to export a still image from one of the movie’s frames to use in an advertisement or a promotion. Second, you could export your movie to be played in a different player than Flash Player. Flash exports both still image and animated formats. Images from your movies can be exported as bitmap and vector graphic files. Following are some of the specific formats Flash exports:

- Bitmap graphic JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PCD, PICT, PCX, or TIFF

- Vector graphic AI, CDR, CMX, CGM, DXF, WMF, EPS, SVG, or SWF

When you export an image in your movie as an .swf file (which is the same format as the Flash movie file), the result is a still image of the first frame of the movie. Mac users cannot use files exported from Windows in the Windows Metafile format. If you are a Mac user exporting to a Windows user, you can export in nearly any format because most image-editing programs (such as PhotoShop and PhotoPaint) can import the Mac PICT format. Open the Test2.fla file that you saved previously. Select File → Export Image. In the Export Image dialog box, select JPEG Image (*.jpg) from the ‘‘Save as type’’ dialog box. Type test in the ‘‘File name’’ box and click the Save button. The Test2.jpg file will contain the frame displayed on the Stage at the time it was exported.

You can export movies in movie (animated) formats just as easily as you can export still images. There are some additional consequences you need to be aware of when you export movies. When you export a movie from Flash instead of publishing it as a Flash Player file, it is going to be because you expect your recipients to play it using software other than Flash. Exporting in different formats yields different results. Export the file in two or three formats, and if you have more than one movie player, you can open it in each player and compare the results.

For example, most Windows users have Windows Media Player because it is distributed with Windows. Mac users are likely to have QuickTime because it is an Apple product. Many player programs for the Windows or Macintosh platform can be downloaded for free from the Internet. Windows Media Player is available at http://www.microsoft.com and is usually included with the operating system, QuickTime can be found at http://www.apple.com/ quicktime, and RealPlayer has a free basic player at http://www.real.com.

Among so many formats, how do you know which is best? The answer is that you select the best export format based on the player that will be used to play the movie. The Windows Media Player plays MPEG, MP3, MPEG-4, MPG, MP2, AVI, and WMV files. RealPlayer plays MPEG, MPG, MP2, MP3, and MPV formats. QuickTime plays MPEG, MP3, MPEG-4, MOV (QuickTime movies), and AVI formats, among others, including Flash! To determine which file format to use in exporting a movie, it is best to experiment by exporting and playing the files to test them in the selected player on the platform you intend to use. The Flash Player format works well across the Windows and Macintosh platforms. If possible, it is best to publish (in the Flash Player format) rather than export the movie.

A further consideration in movie file exporting is the file size. Some files may be extremely large. For example, movies exported in the AVI format and also in Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) tend to be very large. A Flash movie that is less than 1MB when saved in the FLA format may be over 20MB when exported as an AVI file. Such a large file size will not work on the Web. Select File → Export → Export Movie. In the Export Movie dialog box, select the Windows AVI under ‘‘Save as type.’’ Name the file Test2.avi. Accept the defaults in the Export Windows AVI dialog box, and click OK to save.

Start QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or RealPlayer. Any of them should be able to play your exported movie. If you have old versions of these programs, you can download the current version of each player from the Internet at http://www.microsoft.com, http://www.apple.com, or http://www.real.com. Next, launch Windows Explorer or use the Macintosh Finder to locate the Test2.avi and the Test2.fla files to compare. The AVI file is probably over 2MB, while the Flash movie file can be well under 100KB. Clearly, you would want to be selective about the movies you export.

Publishing movies

When you publish your movie, all the images, sounds, and symbols that you added to the movie are compiled into the Flash Player file. A Flash Player movie (.swf) is the compiled version of the Flash authoring (.fla) file. There is no need to copy all of these files to your Web site. Flash takes care of that when the movie is published. You can also select a number of different settings for your published movie. Select File → Publish Settings to view the Publish Settings window. Select the Formats tab. The file types Flash (.swf) and HTML (.html), are selected by default. You also have the option to create other files during publishing. If you create a Windows Projector file, it can be executed by double-clicking the filename.

Select the Flash tab. You can determine the load order (the order in which objects load from bottom up or from top down). You also can generate a size report to show the resources used by each element in the movie. You can protect your product from import online. You can choose to permit or not permit debugging. You can use the JPEG Quality slider bar to adjust the bitmap quality. If you are streaming audio, you can modify these settings. You also can publish in previous versions of Flash.