Re: [Swftools-common] Re:Newbie having trouble with frame rates

[Chris Pugh]

Bill,

>2009/1/7 Bill Gray <address@hidden>:
> Chris,
>
> I'm surprised that you are not aware of this issue.  It appears to be a Flash 
> issue, not one that is specific to swftools.

Let's put it this way..  not a subject close to my heart at any (
frame! ) rate.  ;o)    I'm not a Flash developer, nor do I
ever intend to be one, nor for that matter have I used any version of
the Flash product line!   More surprise?

> This is an article written by an Adobe engineer who works on flash on the 
> subject...

> http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/05/frame-rates-in-flash-player.html

.. and written in 2006, so the information and opinion ( ever so
slightly biased? ) dated.

> As explained in this article, the fps setting is really just a sort of "goal" 
> that the browser tries to hit.  But it would seem >that different browsers 
> give hitting that goal differing levels of priority, and different computers 
> (even the same >computer under differing loads) will have different amounts 
> of resources to devote to the flash player.

This make perfect sense to me.  Tell me honestly, why would you give
flash player access to more system resources
and CPU time than it needs or requires?   You want near dedicated
frame rates and near perfect timings, then just
maybe you should be writing for a dedicated stand-alone flash player
application?    The subject of latency crops up in
many areas, most notably with music applications.

> In my research so far on this this issue, I have not seen a setting described 
> that would for example allow the flash >player to skip frames to hit the 
> right frame rate.

Why should it?  Surely this is a system issue, not a Flash player one?

> My experience so far is consistent that described in the various different 
> forum threads on the subject.  Safari is real >slow.  Firefox seems to be in 
> the middle, and IE is the fastest.

I've just a taken a quick recce of my own.  Would you believe I've
found varied opinion out there, most of which *does
not* , if at all,  coincide with the view that you describe above?
Least of all IE being the fastest!   There are a lot of
variables involved here, from badly installed systems to flash player
bugs.  As stated before, an example to back up your statements, so we
can see the issue at first hand, would be good.

Personally speaking, in my humble experience thus far, I have found
very little to take issue with, from Firefox, Opera
and Seamonkey,  under Linux, to Opera,  Firefox, and ( to some extent
IE ) under Windows; the latter being Vista Basic
which is only there for testing purposes, and occupies the least
amount of space it possibly can.

Maybe you should reconsider the way you are tackling this project,
possibly making good use of the internal Flash event
timer to synchronize video and audio?

> ******************
>
> Any suggestions for how to embed flv video in a swf using swftools?  The 
> articles that I have found on the subject so far all want actionscript to 
> work with something called a video object that seems to be setup outside of 
> actionscript...
> ..
> ..
> ..
> Suggestions?

Not something I've ever had the need to do.  However, I'll happily
think on it... ;o)

Cheers,



Chris.

> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Chris Pugh <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2009 7:27:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [Swftools-common] Newbie having trouble with frame rates
>
> 2009/1/7 Bill Gray <address@hidden>:
>> Hello again,
>>
>> Making good progress on this project.  Thanks so much for your help.
>>
>> I have built the flash I have been hoping for and I have successfully 
>> incorporated mp3 sound files...  only to discover that different browsers on 
>> different computers will deliver different frame rates!!!!  This totally 
>> screws up my goal of having pictures and actions that correspond tightly to 
>> the sounds track!!!
>
> It does?  How come?  Care to post an example?  The frame rate is
> specified/set on the first line, with the 'fps=x' bit ..
>
>   .flash bbox=400x200 filename="electric.swf" version=10 fps=1
>
> If it really is that bad(??) why not try reversing things, and match
> the pictures to the sound?  Presumably the
> mp3 files don't change tempo as well?!
>
>> DOH! ..
>
> ( How did Homer Simpson getr in here? )
>
> .....
>
>
> Chris.
>
>
>