max file size for flash banner

[wardy83]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anybody would be able to shed some light on what the maximum file size of a Flash banner should be?

I have a series of Flash banners which have embedded video and they are reaching around 900Kb each?

I know the visitors to my site have a fast internet connection so will these be OK to use or will I need to progressively stream then? (this I can't figure out how to do on stage)

Cheers peeps!

John.

[BlobFisk]

Wow! 900k sounds very big, even with a fast connection that will take a little time to come down - probably enough time that people will have navigated away by the time it's ready to play.

While there's no set in stone metric for filesize for images, embedded objects etc., it's always worth trying to build your page to load quickly and cleanly for everyone.

How about using a preview shot of the movie that gives people a hint of what they will see, a play button and let them click to play the movie? People are generally more open to waiting a little for a movie to load if they have clicked a play button!

HTH

[wardy83]

Having a play button wouldn't be worthwile.....

Its only about a 5 second video clip which loops.............

223x189 - is the dimension of the video.... what compression settings do you think i should be using?

it is imported onto a graphic in a flash banner.

[wardy83]

Ok I have reduced to 220Kb but its at Flash player 9... will this mean what will this mean for user who don't have flashplayer 9?

[topr8]

i thought the point of flash was that it streamed,

so build it as the movie progresses, be sure they see soemthing almost straight away

[wardy83]

how do i import a streamed video onto my stage though? the reason i use embedded is because it physically appears on the stage and i can resize and fit to the area i want the video to be played.

thanks for your help thus far!

[topr8]

what is the banner for?

i thought it was advertisign your website?

have i misunderstood the term banner?

[wardy83]

its 760x200 near the top of every page on my website.... it has one big picture with text covering the entire banner and a small video within it..... its advertising different areas of my website, its not for putting on other people sites..

[BlobFisk]

Have you played with the compression rate of the view and the images that you are using in your banner? Lowering these should help you get the file size down.

[rocknbil]

I have a series of Flash banners which have embedded video and they are reaching around 900Kb each?

This is probably the wrong approach, especially if you're going to have it on many pages of your site. Although I'm not the most strict in respect to optimizing page sizes, 900K for a single object is HUGE. Cutting down your video and sacrificing content or quality is a compromise, one you shouldn't have to do.

You need to look at methods of importing the video on demand. This is where streaming video comes in. Normally this is done with a player of some sort, but it's pretty easy to do this with a single play button. You create a video object, name the instance on the stage (my_video,) create your button, then onMouseDown you do something like:

var my_nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
my_nc.connect(null);
var my_ns:NetStream = new NetStream(my_nc);
my_video.attachVideo(my_ns);
my_ns.setBufferTime(5);
my_ns.play("/path_to_your_banner.flv");

(Directly from "creating a video banner" in ActionScript 2.0 manual, Working with Images, Sound, and Video > About using FLV video > Creating a video banner )

Using XML import or variables, you could put a variable in the page and pass it to Flash, so all of your series could play different videos through a single "player."