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| Adding
a Wildform Flair Player to Audio Only Files |
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| Introduction |
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| This
tutorial explains how to use Wildform Flair's
convenient player functionality to add a player
to an audio only file. This allows listeners
to apply play controls such as mute, volume,
fast forward, rewind, play, pause and stop to
audio only files. |
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| Select
your audio file |
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begin click File>Import File and select an
audio file. |
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| The
Import Video/Audio/Images will open with the
selected audio in the Input box. |
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| Choose
your encoding settings |
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Select
an audio only preset (you may also enter the
settings you wish to use in the Video/Audio tab).
Presets: |
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| Video/Audio
tab audio settings: |
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As
a general rule, we recommend using one of the "Audio
only SWF " presets as opposed to the "Audio
only FLV " presets. The reason for this
is that if you use the SWF output, anyone with
Flash Player 4 or higher will be able to hear
the content (note: Flash player 5 is required
for volume control). If you use FLV audio the
listener will require the Flash 7 player or higher.
Another big benefit to SWF audio is that you
can use any of the features in the Object Settings
and/or Project Settings windows such as "click
to play ", restrict to url, load at end,
etc. (More on this below.)
There are however a couple of major advantages
to FLV audio that you should consider if you
are creating a very large and/or long duration
audio file such as unlimited play length and
file size. This is because FLV files do not have
the 16,000-frame limit or RAM consumption issues
of SWF files. In addition, when deploying your
audio files on CD you should use FLV because
FLV format offers superior performance when played
from a CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM).
To encode your audio into FLV, select an audio
only preset and then change the "Export
Audio " option in the File tab from SWF
to FLV.
As a simple rule, if you are posting your audio
on the Internet and it is larger than 25-30 MB
or longer than 16,000 frames you will want to
use FLV. If you are putting your audio on a CD
and your file is larger than 5-10 MB you should
use FLV.
In terms of bitrate, you can get reasonable quality
audio using the 56k preset. If you are posting
your audio on the Internet, you should use that
setting rather than posting the audio at multiple
bitrates (such as dial-up and broadband). However,
if the audio quality is very important (such
as a musical performance) you may want to offer
a broadband version of the audio encoded at a
higher bitrate. You can also encode at a higher
bitrate and use one of the preloader options
for listeners on a slower connection (more on
this below). |
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| Adding
a player |
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| Select
the Player tab and choose the player you wish
to use. |
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Make
sure to check the select the Include player when
exporting " option.
For the purposes of this tutorial we'll use the "Basic play controls" player. |
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You
can download it here. Just download the
.zip file and extract the included SWF file
into your Wildform Flair>Players folder.
The zip file contains both the .swf and the
.fla for this player, so you can adjust it
further in Macromedia Flash if you want. This
audio player allows you to set the height to
match the size of the play controls, so you
don't have any additional blank space in the
player, which looks sleeker.
Also, if you have the Wildform Flair Power Players
collection (http://wildform.com/products/flair/plugins.php)
we recommend using one of the "Minimal " players,
again because they have the smallest possible
size
You can also download another audio controls only player here. |
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If
you have selected one of Wildform Flair’s
audio presets, it will have automatically set
the video dimensions to 25 x 25. This will result
in the player appearing at a small size, however
you may adjust the dimensions.
Select the File tab and click Encode & Insert. |
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| Once
your project is inserted onto the stage you will
want to adjust your project dimension in the
Project Settings window. |
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| Player
output options |
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Your
audio and player will be exported together in
a single file if you are using SWF output, or
if you export FLV audio then there will be two
separate files, a player file and the audio file.
(FLV files must be loaded into a SWF in order
to play in the Flash player - unless you are
using the Flashcom streaming server)
Remember that if you use FLV audio you will
have two files – a player .swf and your
audio FLV and you will have to have both for
the player to work. The FLV file will automatically
be placed in the “Load_External_Files” folder
in your Wildform Flair project. |
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| Preloaders |
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When
adding a player to your media files you have
the option to also add a preloader. These preload
a specified amount of the file before playing
begins and display a "__% loaded" indicator.
- Preload: Wildform Flair
has 2 options for automatically outputting
your media files with built-in preloaders.
To use the preloader option, check the box
next to "Preload". You must then
select one of the two built in preloaders.
- Fixed: The fixed preloader
loads a fixed amount of the video (determined
as a percentage of file size) before
the video begins to play. You may enter
in a value from 1-100.
- Adaptive: The adaptive
preloader loads a variable amount of
the video that is based on calculating
the viewer's connection speed to determine
how much of the video needs to be loaded
to allow for uninterrupted play once
the video begins playing. The buffer
factor can be a number from 0 - 2 in
increments of 0.1
- Include Preloader Text: If
you want to include a "__% loaded" indicator
check this box. You can then select the font
and font attributes you wish to assign to
this text.
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| Adding
SWF features |
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| If
you are using the SWF audio, you can add any
of the features in the Object tab in the Settings Window
(you cannot use these features with FLV output). |
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| Exporting
your project |
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Your
project is now ready to be exported.
To export click File>Export File |
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| or
click the Export File button. |
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| Adding
a player to an existing file |
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If
you already have your audio file in your project
(in either swf or flv format) you can use the
Add Player/Preloader feature to add a player
and/or a preloader to your audio.
Right click on a SWF in your project and select
Add Player/Preloader… |
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| The
Edit Player box will appear. You can select a
player from here. Also, if you want to include
a preloader check the Preload box. When complete
click the Create Now button. |
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| Conclusion |
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| We
have now covered everything necessary to add
a Wildform Flair player to audio only files. You
can do much more with Wildform Flair; other tutorials
will cover these subjects. The Wildform Flair
help file also addresses these topics. |
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