What code for embedding .flv-files on own website

[Oliver Henniges]

I made some first tests with flv-files, which I am trying to integrate into my website. However, my browser attempts to download the file, instead of displaying them in the flash-player.

I found some code-snippets here on webmasterworld, but still did not manage to modify them properly. Is there an additonal .htaccess-entry required? Or is that an alternative method? What's the exact syntax for a file named "test.flv"?

[Oliver Henniges]

OK, I found I need an .swf-file to preload the .flv-file. Any chance to create that without professional flash-software?

[garabato]

Sorry, but if you upload the video. Flv to your server, you must first determine whether your server supports extensions. Flv

Unfortunately, very few servers that are offered to support FLV or better ffmpeg and ruby

Ask your hosting provider if it supports flv but never be able to view videos stored on your hosting.

Another simplest and cheapest option is to take the HTML code that provide site youtube.com type, mivideotube.com, dailymotion.com or similar and paste this code into your website

[Samizdata]

I won't recommend one because I don't use them, but there are various ready-made embeddable SWF files available to play "Flash video for the web", and I believe that some are free or have a liberal licence.

Necessarily limited, but no Flash authoring software required.

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[Oliver Henniges]

thx for your reply.

as a matter of fact I downloaded a good swf-player and managed to implement the video a day before christmas.

However, I'm not really satisfied with this: The swf-player is fed with some javascript code, which seems to be responsible for the fact that the video cannot be shown "embedded" e.g. on google-video-search. I still did not get this syntax with "<object>...<embed>..." running.

> you must first determine whether your server supports extensions. Flv

Yes. I recall defining this in .htaccess when I put a google-earth-kmz-file on our "about-us-" page. But I thought that

a) the header of the .flv-file: Content-type: application/x-shockwave-flash
and
b) the object-notation: <object classid="CLSID:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="450" height="450"
codebase="http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0">

which I found in various threads would automatically force the browser to download flash-player.

Do I really have to define this additionally in .htaccess? If so, what is the precise systax?

In addition to all this, I believe it is quite important to get flash-tags of whatever kind (e.g. text) indexed by the search-engines for reasons of SEO. I still have to learn quite a lot on all this.

[travelin cat]

Oliver,

You do not need to alter your .htaccess file to play flash files on your server.

[Oliver Henniges]

travelin cat,

the flash files work fine. The question is: How does the visitor's browser behave, if it doesn't have the required flash-version (9?) installed?

[Samizdata]

My preferred method is to embed SWF files using swfObject, which allows you to detect the required version and offer alternate content (e.g. an image with a caption "Flash 9 Required").

And if memory serves, Flash 8 should normally be enough.

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