One of things that I’ve always found a bit odd is that you can’t double click on an .flv video file and have it open up in the Flash player like a .swf would. Instead you have to wrap it in a .swf and open that, which is a big hassle. Some FLV compressors like Sorenson Squeeze automatically generate the wrapper .swf for you, but lack playback controls. A better option is to use one of the many FLV players out there. Unfortunately I’ve found that where most them have playback controls they don’t really give any of the juicy information about the video file that us developer types really need to get anything done.

Ideally when I’m working with FLV’s I’d like to be able to see what the position and duration is at all times so that I can easily determine timing for cue points I want to create. I also want to know the display dimensions and the file size, and for all of it I want the option to see the units in a number of different conversions. I also want to be able to drag and drop FLV files so I can very quickly preview them without having to dig 10 directories deep for a folder I already have open.

So, you guessed it, I went ahead and made an AIR application to do just this. Its called FLVinspector. Heres a summary of the features:

• Drag and drop FLV videos onto the application window
• Browse and load FLV videos from the local filesystem
• Reports display size, file size, position and duration
• Change the time and size units settings in the preferences (ms, s, m, B, KB, MB)

Click here to Install FLVinspector 1.0Beta2

*update: currently there is a bug with getting the filesize on FLV’s that have been dragged in. I’ll post an updated version when I get the chance. (FIXED, version is now 1.0Beta2)

ian Air, Flex, Projects

Here’s an AS3 application I’ve been working on. You wouldn’t know from reading this geeky blog, but I’m actually an EDM DJ and producer, at least when I’m not buried in code.

Here’s the idea behind it. DJ’s distribute mixes that can sometimes be a few hours long. Most audio players out there are only designed to handle individual songs of only a few minutes length. Load a DJ mix into one of these and you’re loading sometimes hours worth of music into one track. Now your listener has to jog around to different points in the mix using the scrubber to get to a track they like, and all the while they have no idea what song they’re listening to.

Enter Dejaxx. It’s designed specifically to handle DJ mixes. In the XML file you specify information about your contiguous mix file and set up cue points throughout your mix. Each cue point contains the location of the track in the mix and its information (artist name, track name, etc). Now when someone wants to listen to your mix they can move through your cue points just like on a CD. Not bad huh? What’s even cooler is that Dejaxx will also update what track is playing if the song changes while you’re listening.

See it in action here.

Just a warning, I haven’t worked out the progressive streaming yet so prepare to preload a large media file (which just so happens to be a mix of my own!). I still have lots of improvements underway so hopefully I can post a new version soon.

ian AS3.0, Flash, News

I’ve been watching some of the more recent BERYL videos on youtube, and I really can’t get over how great it looks. For those of you who might not know, BERYL is an Open GL enhanced window manager for Linux that provides 3d desktop switching as well as a number of great window effects and visual enhancements. While I’m a developer and my primary role in most projects is to make things work functionally, I’ve always held fast to the notion that form and function are equally important in all things. That being said, the presentation of the Windows operating system has always been a constant source of irritation for me. Over the years things have improved somewhat, but I generally find myself installing unsigned themes, so called “MS Power Tools” and third party software just to gain back a fraction of the features that come with OSX or GNOME/KDE based systems. Recently, despite my “If its not broke don’t fix it” mentality, I’ve been checking out Vista just to see if its something I’m interested in upgrading to, and whereas it does look considerably prettier than previous versions of Windows, it’s still light years away from OSX and BERYL. If only I could have the compatibility and software available to Windows and the good looks of BERYL or OSX all in one system. Maybe one day, right?

ian OS

Every time I turn around there seems to be great things happening with Papervision 3D. John Garden just released a Papervision3D Flash CS3 Component that allows you to load in COLLADA files and assign textures all right in the Flash IDE. It looks like this is going to be a great tool for artists who want to create and test content for use in Papervision without having to touch any code.

ian AS3.0, Flash, News

Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology is on the horizon and theres already quite a bit of commotion as to how the Flash platform will hold up against it. Silverlight touts DX9 hardware accelerated 3D and HD video formats, two features that Flash seemingly can’t implement due to Microsoft and MPAA copyrights. While these two features make Silverlight look significantly shinier than Flash the Flash platform has been the industry standard for web based interactive sites and applications for the last decade. With so many artists and developers already behind the flash platform it should be another interesting uphill battle for Microsoft. I can imagine that the HD capabilities will be winning over big time MPAA affiliated production houses and that the 3D acceleration will attract large game studio who will attempt to design web based 3D games, but isn’t that only a small portion of those in the market for animation and interactivity on the internet?

ian News

I’m thinking of buying one of these nifty little wi-fi rabbits over at http://www.nabaztag.com/

I first saw it on Aral Balkan’s blog set up so you could send messages directly to it from a little flash form. I took a trip over to the site and it appears that theres a full open API for these little guys so us developer types can go nuts. Theres already quite a number of built in goodies built in so even if you don’t have an uncontrollable urge to create homebrew software for everything you buy like I do theres still plenty of fun to be had.

ian News