New on Board- Trouble making .FLV output.

Tom O'Farrell · Post by **Tom O'Farrell** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:31 am

I should have mentioned that XP2 Pro still cannot play the Flash movies it creates. This should really be addressed by Corel I would think.
But having the flash version saved merely means using Adobe Flash Player. Probably OK with XP.
However that is another ball of tricks with Vista. I cannot get it loaded properly into either 32 bit version or 64 bit version of Vista.
Vista does not want anything to do with Flash as far as I can tell.
Pity because the Flash version is about 5.5 MB vs the original AVCHD version at 56MB vs the AVI version at 112MB (& reduced to 720x480 at that which is of course the standard size for DV format AVI's) vs the two HD MPG versions at 97MB for the 1080 and 72MB for the 720.
And the WMV version reduced to 320x240 is an almost incredibly small 0.966 MB. Guess I'll stick with using WMV for my web site uploads. I had really wanted to use Flash because it is cross platform.
I believe many Mac owners can now view WMV without problems, but am not sure of this.

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:57 pm

Installing the VS Pro patch fixed my problem too, not being able to render Flash on my Vista machine.

Now as far as VS not playing FLV files, that's not surprising. Look at all the different codecs VS can render to. However it takes certain players to play them, like QT MOV files. So I use a freebie player called.. Applian FLV Player. It contains the Adobe Flashplayer to playback FLV files. However it will not play SWF files. There are some major differences in the 2, which is why you can play SWF files within VS. Corel includes the flashplayer required to play that format.

With FireFox or IE, you should be able to playback SWF files. If not all it takes is installing an add-on/plug-in. You can also download stand-alone flashplayers from Adobe's website. Flash developers use them all the time to test their products. I have a less-expensive flash authoring program, that comes with Flashplayers 4-9, and there's good reason for that.

Again those SWF flashplayers will not playback FLV format, so you need to use a player that is made for playing FLV. Hosting services like YouTube, and Veoh use the FLV encoding, and stream it, which is what the format is designed for. There must be some method they use to hand that FLV off to a SWF browser player.

Tom O'Farrell · Post by **Tom O'Farrell** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:30 pm

I am well impressed with Corel XP2 Pro. The many different codecs you mention are just one reason. There is the ability to edit (quickly with Proxy) AVCHD files and render them directly to many formats, and Paint as well that would have cost a lot of money just a few years ago. I have been using premiere since the early-90's when Windows 95 first came out and allowed video editing (if that's what today we would call the endless glitches and mess we were always in ) using SVHS, and upgrading as I went along.
This $100 XP2 Pro is a considerably better (easier and faster) than my latest version of Premiere that would cost a newbie about $700 plus plus.
So I abandoned Premiere and swapped over to XP2Pro.
One comment is on importing AVCHD. XP2Pro does not have device control for my Canon HF-10 AVCHD flash memory camera. At first I thought this would be a show-stopper. But now I would not use it anyway even if it is offered at a later date. Because this is a solid state (flash) memory camera Vista recognizes it as an external USB hard-drive just like any others. I drag n'drop my entire video files from my camera in about 1/5 real time directly to a new file folder on my desktop and import to XP2Pro from there, and all future saves of the project files and my final outputs files at whatever formats I want are all automatically saved to the same folder.
A more simple workflow is hard to imagine, and it's very fast.
From shooting a 5 minute piece (I play flutes and shoot myself playing a piece of mostly Irish or traditional music solo in my little studio) to importing, editing with a title and credits and a few transitions, rendering for the web and placing it on my web site is all less than 20 minutes, I can possibly (it becomes a game to see how fast you can do it) do it in less time. With Premiere I doubt I could ever equal this.
I think Corel's XP2 Pro is generally underestimated.
Certainly a bargain at the price.

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:42 pm

Thanks Tom, for that great, positive testimonial. I know Corel would certainly appreciate it..

Might try sending it to them...

I've never understood the HDV, ADVCHD stuff, I'm stuck in the stone-age with DV (digital-8, not even mini-dv). However it works for me, as my TV is still a CRT. Anyway I've done some reading on it, basically the Wikipedia AVCHD definition. It's not surprising that there are problems with the AVCHD files. All the camera manufacturers seem to want to do things their way, ie; no actual standardization..

Tom O'Farrell · Post by **Tom O'Farrell** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:45 pm

Well unless you are a video nut or like me have a reason why bother.
I am not a fan of AVCHD and do not advise people to go for it. A powerful new computer is almost certainly needed, I had to get one and it only just does the job, and it's a quad core. I am told by other AVCHD users on the forums I use that even the latest Mac's can't really handle it well.
And XP@ Pro was the only editing program I could find (I tried 5) that offered native AVCHD editing without having to jump thru' many loops as in Vegas, Premiere, Avid etc.
I say stick to HDV @ 1440x720 res. Much easier to work with and great picture quality. Granted AVCHD has slightly better picture quality at 1920x1080i, but not enough to make a huge difference.
I wanted the lightweight camera so I could mount it on my new radio controlled model aircraft to shoot beauty spots that I could edit into my music productions. The lightweight HF-10 came as AVCHD with no choices.
Watching myself or the small group I play with working our way thru' a slow tempo baroque piece is not the most visually stimulating thing no matter how well we play.
Watching other groups doing it is even worse, can be painful.
I presently cut in out-takes of beauty spots, and hope the aerial perspective will be an improvement, something different anyway, and it's a great hobby besides.
Another toy-"wow"- as the better half says!

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:03 pm

Granted AVCHD has slightly better picture quality at 1920x1080i, but not enough to make a huge difference.

If you are just going on the larger frame size, don't be fooled. If you look at any number of critical comparative reviews by professionals, they consistently say that HDV gives better quality than AVCHD, though it's pretty neck and neck to us amateurs. HDV after all has a higher quality bit rate of CBR 25 Mbps, and is also considered to be (slightly) more stable in fast movement shots.

Admittedly, though, the reviews I have read do not compare HDV to the AVCHD that now comes from the new Canon VBR 24 Mbps AVCHD vidcams.

Tom O'Farrell · Post by **Tom O'Farrell** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:38 pm

Yes indeed I hear the same thing. If I had not wanted a lightweight camera (and was also admittedly kinda intrigued by flash memory) I would have gone for HDV to replace my falling apart faithful old Sony PD-150. Probably the Canon XH-A1.
My saying AVCHD has a slightly better picture is strictly subjective, I only had a couple of hours and compared the output of a Canon XH-A1 HDV on a large Sony TV I have. Far too many variables. I just used my own eyes.

The Canon HF-10 has now this week been replaced by the HF-S10, it can shoot stills in the 8 Mpix range. It is much upgraded with bigger sensor etc. Rave reviews so far. Another curve thrown at us. It might be worth my up-grading to. But probably needs another computer! Where does it stop?

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:26 pm

Where does it stop?

When you run out of money.

Accolades · Post by **Accolades** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:07 pm

Ken Berry wrote:Ron (and Tom): I have only just now discovered to my very great surprise that there is an official patch for X2 Pro dated November 2008 on the Corel website. See my post at http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?p=175181#175181 It upgrades X2 Pro to version 12.0.96.1

I just opened My X2 Pro and have a Version of 12.0.98.0 Pro ?

I cant recall doing any recent updates?

Accolades · Post by **Accolades** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:15 pm

Accolades wrote:
Ken Berry wrote:Ron (and Tom): I have only just now discovered to my very great surprise that there is an official patch for X2 Pro dated November 2008 on the Corel website. See my post at http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?p=175181#175181 It upgrades X2 Pro to version 12.0.96.1
I just opened My X2 Pro and have a Version of 12.0.98.0 Pro ?

I cant recall doing any recent updates?

Just downloaded the November X2 Patch (18mb) and ran it.

I now have X2 Pro Version 12.0.98.1 Pro!!

Post by **Ron P.** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:26 pm

This is real strange, but I discovered a glitch with all of my VS versions, the Import from DVD folders, so I had to do a repair re-install to fix it. After completing that, I had to reinstall the patch. I know when I posted earlier, like Ken, the patch did not change the version number from "96" to "98". However today, after the patch, the version number is 12.0.98.1.

Don't know why it did not update the version number yesterday when running the patch, and did today...

Tom O'Farrell · Post by **Tom O'Farrell** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:13 pm

Mine is 12-0-98-1 Pro. With the patch.