Free! - Mini-review and competition of Foundation Flash 8 Video - Reviews - Articles

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Do you want to master Flash video work, and work your way toward creating awesome, mind-blowing, interactive web applications? Well, don't go any further—this book is all you need to step into the future.

When Flash Professional 8 was released, it seemed as if we'd embarked on a web video revolution almost overnight. Up until then, web video was a morass of competing players, technologies, standards, codecs, and playback quality. The inclusion of the On2 VP6 codec, the FLV Playback component, alpha channel video, and the Flash 8 Video Encoder has ended the infancy of web video, creating an instant benchmark with no stops in between.

Overview

And this book is the ultimate guide to Flash 8 video—it offers practical advice, technical guidance, and a full series of creative projects ranging from the dead simple to the complex in a manner that talks to you as an equal and makes only one assumption: basic familiarity with the Flash interface.

We start with the basics—how to edit video in some of the most popular packages available (such as iMovie and Movie Maker 2) and create a Flash video file and import it into Flash.

Next, we move on to the good stuff—creating a custom video player; creating an alpha channel video and using it in some spectacular projects; turning your creativity loose by applying filters and blend effects to video using the Flash interface and ActionScript; creating video walls, menus, and stunning masking effects; and exploring how Adobe After Effects 7 and Flash Professional 8 are poised to become a motion graphics powerhouse. Best of all, you will discover something the authors had discovered by the time they started writing this book...this stuff is fun!

In this book you'll learn:

The basics of video editing using Movie Maker 2, iMovie, and more
How to import your video into Flash
How to work with Flash Video components
Several of the new features of Flash 8, including alpha channels, filters, and blends How to master several amazing video effects, such as green screen superimposing, video walls, getting your users into the thick of the action with webcams, and much more!

Summary of Contents:

Creating FLVs using the Video Wizard and the Flash 8 FLV Encoder
The Basics of Video Creation
Alternate FLV Creation tools: Sorenson Squeeze 4 and Flix Pro 5
Creating Flash Video using the FLV Components
Creating a "Talking head" video using Alpha Channels
Adding Filters and Blend Effects to Flash Video
Masking Video
Creating a Video Wall
Choosing and Playing Multiple Videos
Using the Camera Object to Involve the Audience
Actionscript and Flash Video
Video Delivery to Cell Phones

Who is this book for?

This book is mainly for users that are new to Flash Video, the book learns you all you need to know to get started but don't expect a large collection of advanced tips and techniques.

Conclusion

Finally it's there, a book on Flash 8 Video. Video is one of the cornerstones of Flash 8 (and arguably the future of the web) so I was quite pleased to get a chance to review this book.

Friends Of Ed use a better layout for this book then ever before, the book is in full color and uses many usefull and decorative images and graphics. The build-up is very clear and the writers do a great job in learning you how to use Flash 8 for video purposes.

Are there any downsites? Well, unfortunatly there are, the book does what it says but does not include a lot of tips and techniques for intermediate or advanced users. I hope Friends of Ed will release another book that does, as there is much more to explore once you know the basics.

So to sum things up, if you're new to Flash 8 and video and you want to learn how to use it as quick as possible, then this book is a must have.

Competition

The friendly people of Friends of Ed are giving away 5 books. All you need to do, to enter the competition is; download the extract (press read more and then download sample PDF on your right)and answer the following question:

What is the first version of Flash that included the drawing API?

Send your answer to this e-mail address, before Thursday the 31st of August 2006. Don't forget to include your post address and phone number (required for international shipping) in the e-mail.

Good Luck!