Video to Flash How-To

Software

• Windows Movie Maker (for lack of anything else) - to create the vid - if widescreen, choose an NTSC option
• ffmpeg - to convert to 'flv'
• FlowPlayer - a flash player that loads the 'flv' file, or streams from a server

How To Do It

1. Save video in Movie Maker (I used NTSC: 720x480)
2. Encode with ffmpeg:

   ffmpeg -i video.wmv -s 360x240 -ar 44100 -r 12 small-video.flv

   ffmpeg -i video.wmv -s 720x480 -ar 44100 -r 20 large-video.flv

   Note the size (-s) to match your video size (common is 320x240 or 360x240 to preserve ratio)
   Note the rate (-r) - higher quality might use a larger frame rate

3. Add markup to your [x]html:
   Note: add extra height for the controls: 23px for standard FlowPlayer.swf

   <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="FlowPlayer.swf" 
           style="width:360px; height:263px;" id="FlowPlayer">
     <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
     <param name="movie" value="FlowPlayer.swf" />
     <param name="quality" value="high" />
     <param name="scale" value="noScale" />
     <param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
     <param name="flashvars" value="config={
   		videoFile: 'small-video.flv',
   		autoPlay: false,
   		autoBuffering: true,
   		loop: false,
   		autoRewind: true,
   		initialScale: 'orig',
   		splashImageFile: 'clickToPlay.jpg',
   		menuItems: [false, false, true, false, false, true]
   		}" />
   </object>
   

Reference:

• http://flowplayer.org/documentation