Audio and Video

A new feature of Flash MX is the ability to incorporate standard video file types such as MPEG, DV (Digital Video), MOV (QuickTime), and AVI. One benefit of this is that anyone with a Flash player installed would not need additional media players to view video - it can be displayed "transparently" in a browser. Video is delivered via the Sorenson Spark codec, which incorporates progressive download for reasonably fast playback (it's also possible to stream Flash content via the Real media server and RealOne player).

In Flash, video clips are treated like other graphical objects: they can be scaled, rotated, skewed and animated - they can even be interactive if integrated with scripting.

Flash can incorporate audio in MP3 format, in addition to other standard audio formats.

Since video is a very new feature of Flash, there aren't lots of examples of it yet, but here are a few to start:

SF Interactive - Apocalypse Now documentary footage

Kurani Group - Skyboarding demo

WGBH - Zoot Suit Culture documentary

The Leakey Foundation - Paleoanthropology Lecture Series