Monthly Archives: April 2009
Kasparius.com embraces Flash video
UPDATE 2016: Flash sucked its way out of existance so with the move to new server time came to update. HTML 5 loves video so embedding has become a dream compared to the “old days”. One saving grace was that Flash used H264 so no recoding was necessary, just a quick change of file extension from F4V to MP4 and all the files rocked into the next decade. Enjoy! 🙂
I posted last months video in Flash format, using the new Flash Video Player plugin for WordPress. It seems to work pretty well now, unlike last time I tried it a few versions ago. I really like the ease of embedding the files, including the simple way it handles preview images. With QuickTime this was a pain and the code pretty obnoxious. With Flash all you need is this:
flashvideo file=http://www.kasparius.com/videos/liv11months.f4v image=http://www.kasparius.com/videos/liv11months.jpg /
It’s also a lot easier on visitors, with no preloading until you choose a video to play. On the downside the preview image loading seems mildly flaky but I can live with it.
So the site has undergone an update to the more recent videos moving them over to Flash format. In many cases I wasn’t able to code them from the original Final Cut project which leads to some quality loss, but the overall result is good and all new videos will be coded directly to Flash.
Adorable germs and virii
On the last day of class I happened to scan the university bookstore for possible gifts, and my eyes were drawn to a rack of funny looking stuffed animals. “Great” I thought, “Liv will love one of these”. Then I read the tag… Giant Microbes. Educational and fun it says, and while I think they are amusing it’s a little weird giving your kid MadCow, Staph or Ebola to play with 🙂