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PowerPoint And Flix
- by Geetesh Bajaj
This article was authored in 2002, and Wildform no longer creates
the Flix product -- they sold it to On2
Technologies.
PowerPoint And Video
Beyond Codecs
Introducing Wildform
Download and Installation
A Flix Session
Inserting Flash
More About Flix
Flix Advantages & Feedback
Pricing & Support
Pros And Cons
PowerPoint And Video
Like time, evolution never stops - not so long ago, incorporating
video content into PowerPoint was a task good enough for geeks
alone. You needed to insert a Media Player object - make sure
the MCI drivers (whatever that meant) were properly configured
and
then change settings for the inserted content. PowerPoint 97
changed all that - you could now insert video within PowerPoint
at the
click of a menu option.
Around the same time came Flash from Macromedia - a new standard
in animation (and video) that wowed everyone. Ways were being found
to insert Flash content into PowerPoint. Ever since Macromedia
decided to open up the Flash SWF format, there has been a deluge
of fine programs that output everything from animations and video
to the Flash SWF format. Our subject of discussion today is Flix
from Wildform, a program that converts video formats to Flash SWF.
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Beyond Codecs
My first thoughts on using Flix were concerned neither about
Microsoft or Macromedia - rather about Apple QuickTime. Let me
explain.
My digital camera outputs fairly good quality video clips in
the QuickTime MOV format - and PowerPoint offers no support to
insert any QuickTime MOVs within a presentation. True, MOV is listed
as a video format that PowerPoint can insert - unfortunately, that's
limited to QuickTime 1 and 2 movies - the current QuickTime version
is 6. You can read more about the entire gamut here:
PowerPoint And QuickTime
As a regular contributor on the Microsoft
PowerPoint forum, I know that there is a huge level of frustration
among users who cannot insert QuickTime content into PowerPoint.
Flix offers the perfect solution...
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Introducing Wildform
Wildform, Inc. - based in Venice, California, USA develops and
distributes Flash and video solutions. Among its products are Flix -
a program that encodes almost every type of video, audio and image
file into the Flash SWF format. Wildform also creates SWfX -
an easy-to-use Flash text animation software.
The Wildform Video Library is a repository of royalty
free video clips that features content in categories as diverse
as space, animals, people and sports. All content can be previewed
onsite.
Colby Devitt, President of Wildform, Inc. has been my contact
for this article - I wish to thank her for all the support and
collaboration.
You might want to visit the Wildform web site:
Wildform,
Inc.
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Download and Installation
Flix is available as an ESD product you can download from the
Wildform site. We'll discuss pricing later in this review.
In addition, you can download a fully functioning demo version
of Wildform Flix - which places a watermark on any output video.
Also, the audio output would contain a "Flix demo" audio
mark.
Fix itself comes in three flavours - Flix Pro, Flix SE and Flix
Lite. All three versions are different in their capabilities with
Flix Pro, the subject of this article leading the pack.
Installation is a quick affair - you need to be connected online
to complete an installation.
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A Flix Session
Now, we shall be using Flix to convert a simple QuickTime movie
to SWF (on the Microsoft Windows platform). As such Flix is loaded
with options and understanding and implementing all possibilities
may involve a slight learning curve unless you use readymade presets.
To keep matters simple, we'll use an easy step-by-step technique
- something you can replicate while converting your own movies
to SWF using Flix.
Launching Flix actually opens a dialog box with five tabs - File,
SWF, Audio, Video and Vector. The File tab contains basic
input and output options.
Within the Input option, I chose a QuickTime MOV file -
Flix automatically saves a SWF file of the same name within the
same folder, but you can change that within the Output option
box. Usually, Flix encodes the resultant SWF at the same fps (frame
per seconds) rate as the source file - however, since my source
video was from a non-standard origin, Flix displayed a warning
box suggesting I find out the original fps - luckily, I knew that
the source QuickTime movies were all 20 fps.
The File tab also has many more options - including encoding presets
and export options that range from SWF (for Flash 3-6 or Flash
MX), FLV (Flash MX Video), HTML, Windows and Mac projectors, etc.
Finally, you can provide the finished SWF with a hyperlink to a
web page or another SWF.
As such, you may actually proceed with the encoding straightaway
- but it might be a good idea to explore the four other tabs before
that.
The SWF tab includes playback and loop options - as well
as an option to create an importable (into Flash versions 3 to
6) SWF. You can also choose a custom fps here (as I needed to do
in my case with 20 fps).
The Audio tab allows you to choose your sampling rates
and bitrate - you can also opt to export audio streams as WAV and
MP3 sounds.
The Video tab is loaded with choices - here you can choose
the quality of the encoded video on a factor of 1 to 100. You can
also enter your video fps here as well as opt to maintain source
aspect ratios for the dimensions to be exported.
The Vector tab provides an interesting offshoot of the
entire theme that is unique to Flix - you can create vector videos
that consist of 2 colours, grayscale or full colour depths. There
are umpteen output detail options that may have you experimenting
with results.
Once you've chosen all your options, you can start encoding -
this is quite a fast process considering that video by itself can
be so processor sensitive. My 902 kb QuickTime movie (encoded originally
using the super-efficient Sorenson codec) ended up as a 546 kb
SWF file (using a quality factor of 65) within a minute - the output
was indistinguishable from the original!
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Inserting Flash
PowerPoint offers no native support to inserting Flash SWFs -
fortunately, there are several add-ins that help you achieve the
task at a click of a button. It is also possible to manually insert
a Flash SWF into PowerPoint using the Control toolbox. All options,
including those involving add-ins are explained elsewhere on this
site:
Inserting Flash Into PowerPoint
In addition, if you want to learn more about the subject, or need
links to other sites which explain the procedure, look here:
PowerPoint And Flash
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More About Flix
Flix accepts almost all common video formats for conversion to
SWF - Wildform recommends an installation of both the QuickTime
Player and Windows Media Player on a system with Flix. This allows
Flix to accept many more video formats and compression codecs.
With both QuickTime and Windows Media players present on a system,
Flix can access video (AVI, DV, MOV, QT, MPG, ASF, WMV), audio
(WAV, MP3, WMA, ASF) and still image (JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PSD,
TIF, TGA, PIC) formats.
Output options include the ubiquitous SWF as well as the new Flash
MX FLV movie format. You can also export to SWFs contained within
HTML and email formats - as also both Windows and Mac standalone
projectors. In addition, the audio stream can be exported individually
to WAV and MP3 formats.
Flix also offers a convenient batch processing function to convert
multiple video sources to individual SWFs.
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Flix Advantages & Feedback
Flix offers many advantages over using normal video files - you
can forget about format and codec problems. Distribution is more
compact and easier - being suitable for both web and offline usage.
Needless to add, these benefits extend to using Flix output content
within PowerPoint. As we have already discussed, Flix provides
a great solution to incorporating QuickTime content within PowerPoint.
In addition, PowerPoint does not natively support other video formats
like RealMedia - converting original source files to Flix SWF rather
than RealMedia resolves that problem.
You might want to read some authentic user feedback at the Wildform
site:
Flix
Testimonials
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Pricing & Support
As we discussed earlier, Flix comes in three incarnations - Flix
Pro, Flix SE and Flix Lite. While the Pro version is priced at
US$149, the SE and Lite versions are priced at US$69 and US$29
respectively. All purchases are made through online secure server.
Support options include FAQs at the Wildform site - they also
provide a detailed 'walkthrough' of the product, which in essence
is a detailed look at all features.s
There is also an online forum dedicated to Flix at the Flash Kit
site:
Flash
Kit Community Forums
The forum is often populated by support personnel from Wildform
- you can expect to receive responses to posts within 24 hours.
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Pros And Cons
First, let us tackle the cons - although Flix is not a very complicated
product, I do wish there was a wizard based interface available
which led the user through a series of questions to determine the
best preset suitable for a particular job. Also, Flix has problems
ascertaining the fps rate of some file formats.
Now the pros of the product - Flix in itself is a one-trick pony
that converts video formats to the Flash SWF format. Having said
that, its scope is amazing since it covers and caters to every
imaginable option.
By doing so, it brings the Flash SWF format into the open fray
of web video formats like WindowsMedia, QuickTime and RealMedia
without the hassle of downloading yet another browser plugin, since
the Shockwave Flash plugin is already installed on 98% of the world's
browsers.
Flix also comes in various flavours like Pro, SE and Lite, which
in turn are placed at separate price points - this ensures that
there is a version of Flix available for you at the feature and
price level that is commensurate with your requirements.
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