FLASH CS3
User Guide
309
About digital video and Flash
Supported file formats for video
If QuickTime 7 for Macintosh, QuickTime 6.5 for Windows, or DirectX 9 or later (Windows only) is installed on
your system, you can import video clips in several file formats, including MOV, AVI, and MPG/MPEG. You can
import linked video clips in MOV format.
Flash documents with embedded video can be published as SWF files. Flash documents with linked video must be
published in QuickTime format.
The following video file formats are supported for importing embedded video if QuickTime 7 is installed on your
Macintosh computer:
The following video file formats are supported for importing embedded video if DirectX 9 or later is installed
(Windows only):
By default, Flash imports and exports video using the On2 VP 6
codec
. A codec is a compression-decompression
algorithm that controls how multimedia files are compressed during encoding, and decompressed during playback.
If you attempt to import a file format that is not supported on your system, a warning message appears that the
operation cannot be completed. In some cases, Flash might import the video but not the audio in a file. For example,
audio is not supported in MPG and MPEG files imported with QuickTime 7 on Mac OS. In such cases, a warning
indicates that the audio portion of the file cannot be imported. You can import the video without sound.
See also
“About Linked QuickTime video” on page 304
“Comparing the On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark video codecs” on page 310
Audio support for MPEG video
Because MPEG encodes both the video and audio portions of a file into a single track, encoding MPEG files as FLV
files might result in the audio portion being removed. This occurs primarily when encoding video files into FLV
format on Mac OS. On Mac OS, MPEG video is imported using QuickTime. QuickTime does not support extracting
audio content from MPEG files (although QuickTime correctly plays back an MPEG file with audio programming).
File type
Extension
Audio Video Interleaved
.avi
Digital video
.dv
Motion Picture Experts Group
.mpg, .mpeg
QuickTime Video
.mov
File type
Extension
Audio Video Interleaved
.avi
Motion Picture Experts Group
.mpg, .mpeg
Windows Media file
.wmv, .asf