I have played around quite a bit with Flash in general, and a mp3
player in particular.
Flash is just too CPU intensive -- open 2 or 3 browser windows the the
Macromedia site & it will affect the performance of other apps on your
desktop. I am not saying that the normal user will do this, but it
illustrates the overhead of Flash.
This particular Jukebox is for friends and family all across the globe.
Many of them have older computers and slow (or dial up Internet
connections).
I figure, if I can do it all in the QT plugin, the user would avoid:
1) downloading the .swf movie
2) the CPU cycles used by Flash whether it is doing anything or not (I
have documented this in prior threads)
There will be various types of content:
1) songs -- normal mp3 files. (an iTunes-like interface)
2) complete videos (with live sound, possibly narration over, and bg
music)
3) photo albums
4) text snippets
5) narration
6) menus, controls and links
7) slide shows including all of the above.
It appears that all this can be done with QT, WMP, and RM with a
desktop player or browser plugin.
There is an XML language for this purpose called SMIL. With SMIL you
can put together a preso (and that's what this is, in reality) based on
a simple XML text file. SMIL, in effect is a text-driven (XML)
substitute for the Flash stage & timeline. In face, you can include
Flash movies as part of a SMIL preso.
So, instead of a desktop player or browser plugin, playing a mp3, mov,
or swf -- it can play a .smi ( which can invoke all; the others (and a
lot more).
From what I have experienced so far, I can be playing an annotated
slideshow with bg mp3 in (much) less time than it would tahe to
download an swf (and a much less CPU overhead on the client)
For example (if you have Safari or IE6) go to my site at:
http://67.124.145.42/cfusion/mymedia/
then click the "Play SMI Playlist" button at the bottom.
On my machine it takes 3-4 secs to start playing the SMI -- no delay
for swf download, no sticky feeling that you get with most Flash
sites..
The SMIL file is displays the images, calls a BG mp3, and calls a
streaming txt file that does the captioning.
This is a work in progress, so I don't have all the captions, yet.
If you click on the third image (Closeup of Lucy) it wi open another
browser window and link to Apple's site.
There are actually for parts to this preso:
1) the slide show with several things going on in parallel
2) a second short audio
3) a third audio
4) a short QT movie with an audio soundtrack.
I think I am on the right trach,
That said, this will be open source & other people have expressed a
desire to add a Flash front end.
The more, the merrier!
Dick
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
choose from."
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum -
On Jul 24, 2004, at 8:41 PM, dave wrote:
> somewhere i have some code for a pretty good cf jukebox thingy
> but why do that when u can easily make a kick ass one in flash?
>
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: Dick Applebaum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date:��Sat, 24 Jul 2004 20:06:57 -0700
>
> >Is it worth joining to see the page?
> >
> >What's it about?
> >
> >TIA
> >
> >Dick
> >
> >"The important thing is not to stop questioning."
> >- Albert Einstein -
> >
> >On Jul 24, 2004, at 6:27 PM, Nando wrote:
> >
> >> Reading along, i just found this
> >>
> >>��http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/6561.htm
> >>
> >>��seems to be the / a way to go for this. Anyone else have anything
> >> better?
> >>
> >>��-----Original Message-----
> >>��From: Dick Applebaum [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>��Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 1:01 AM
> >>��To: CF-Talk
> >>��Subject: Re: CF Jukebox redux - what browsers to support.
> >>
> >>��Mike
> >>
> >>��Thanks for the chide & the advice -- I will see if I can find
> >>��standalone downloads for IE 5 & IE 5.5.
> >>
> >>��Dick
> >>
> >>��"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them
> to
> >>��choose from."
> >>��- Andrew S. Tanenbaum -
> >>
> >>��On Jul 24, 2004, at 2:49 PM, Mike Alberts wrote:
> >>
> >>��> >I didn't test on IE 5.5
> >>��>
> >>��>��shame on you ;-)
> >>��>
> >>��>��>Brings up a good question -- What browsers should I support
> >>��> especially
> >>��>��>on win?
> >>��>
> >>��>��There are still millions of users on IE 5 and 5.5 on Windows.
> I'm
> >> not
> >>��> happy about having to support them either, but how can you just
> >> ignore
> >>��> that many users? That's why we get the big bucks :-)
> >>��>
> >>��>��>I have to setup a separate virtual machine for each version
> of IE
> >>��>��>unless someone knows how to install multiple IE version on a
> >> single
> >>��> OS
> >>��>��>(PITA).
> >>��>
> >>��>��Actually it's quite simple to run multiple versions of IE on a
> >> single
> >>��> OS. I currently have 3,4,5,5.5 and 6 on Win2k. Granted they
> don't
> >> run
> >>��> 'properly' and there are issues, but they run good enough for
> >> testing
> >>��> purposes. Haven't tried it on XP, but I'd imagine that it'd
> work.
> >>��> There are downloads out there for all the versions that will run
> >>��> standalone.
> >>��>
> >>��
> >
> >
>
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