Camtasia Flash in AMS Pro

[Neill Karl]

I'm using AMS Pro to put together a product demo CD. I've used Camtasia to create several demonstration videos, and have used Camtasia to put them in .SWF format. Since I'm using AMS Pro, it's a simple matter to take the Flash file, load it up, and put the controls in. *Except!* I really need a progress indicator of some kind. Not to hard to make, but I can't figure out a way to find out the total length of the Flash file, in frames or seconds, from within AMS. I think I could track my location in the movie by tracking the elapsed time, but I need to know the total first! I'm sure that if I was a REAL programmer, and had Flash MS or some other way of editing and creating Flash, I could solve this quickly. But, I'm not. I have to work with the Flash from Camtasia.

I could solve my problems by just using AVI instead of Flash, but I like the small size of the Flash, and have found that, when I reduce the size of the video from the original, the Flash looks a lot better than the AVI. So, I'm sticking with Flash.

I've tried just loading the html file created by Camtasia into a web object and using the Camtasia-created control bar. This *almost* works, too, But I'd like to do my own control bar, to suit my color schemes. Also, there's a size issue of some kind that forces me to leave a border around the html object that I'd like to avoid.

So, if I could just figure out how to determine the length of the .SWF file (or my current position in the file - I could just seek to the end to get the total), I'd be all set up. I did figure out the file size, but that doesn't quite work either. Oh, and in case you're interested, I did figure out how to get the frames-per-second info from the movie - it's a variable that you can pull out with the flash.getvariable command - it's "csMovieFPS". Too bad I can't figure out the variable for length or current position!

So, short of learning Flash and buying Flash MS, any idea how I can solve my problem?

Thanks!

[JimS]

I imagine someone who knows Flash will help you soon. Since I’m not good enough with Flash to do what you are asking, the ‘work around’ that I have used, is to just use a generic .swf progress bar and loop it. I show and run it to show that the program is busy, then stop and hide it when I’m done. The looping visual lets the user know that the program is busy.

Sure it’s the lazy way, but it offers very nearly as much value to the end user as a progress bar done correctly. I figure that progress bars done correctly, tend to count tasks. Different types of tasks don’t necessarily take the same amount of time to complete. That means that most skip, stall, and jump as they progress, thereby being nearly useless for allowing the user to make an accurate judgment on the amount of time left. Progress bars means the program is busy, that’s about it. If a progress bar appears to stall or stop, this could cause some end users to panic or lose patients and abort. I figure the short quick progress bar that I loop, conveys the message that the program is doing lots of things, and doing them fast.

That’s my 2¢, complete with my justification for being lazy.

By the way, when you figure out how to do this correctly, I hope you share the code. ;)

[Neill Karl]

Thanks, Jim - but, I DID figure out a good way to get what I want! About midnight last night, actually.

There are a couple more variables you can get from the Camtasia Flash object - _totalframes and _currentframe. So, you can use:

curframe = Flash.GetFlashVariable("CamFlash", "_currentframe");

to get the current frame. Similarly with _totalframes. Couple that with csMovieFPS, and you've got all the info you need to calculate time into movie, total movie time, current frame and total frames.

Now, I'm working on the progress bar. When I get it done, I'll post it.

All I want now is a way to adjust the volume of the audio that is recorded with the Flash movie. Any ideas?

[Seville]

Hey Neill, I used flash files created in camtasia 2.o, it is a good program, in fact I use to capture video in AVI, then I convert to flash inside camtasia, but for the controls to actually be attached to the flash file, I do not know how to do it, I can get the controls when I play it in html, but is not what I want, then I was forced to get Swishvideo, there I bring my AVI file to convert it to flash, adding some controls, in fact I created one myself, but you need swishvideo, if you want to see it how is it done in swishvideo, let me know, but if you success the way you are working please share that with me, I can use it in my projects.
Your help is greatly appreciated
Seville

[4thstar]

Hello.
Neill I hope all is well.

I have just started to look at how AMS works and what i can do with it.
My intentions are much like yours and i forsee the same problems as you no doubt have had.

Because i am so new with all of this i would like to ask if you have a project you could supply me or any tips .

I too use camtasia.

I think if i could see a working project containing swf files and progress bars in action i could understand better what i need to do in order to use AMS better for my needs.

Kind Regards
Carl Hawkins