Sorenson Squeeze: The current version, Squeeze 4.5, is a full video compression suite offering both FLV and Digital Video compression.

These are the same people who produce the ON2VP6 codec introduced in Flash 8 that has, in many respects, ignited the video explosion on the web.

FlixPro: The current version, Flix 8.5, is available through ON2 Technologies.

If you are serious about encoding Flash video, then consider picking up a copy of either of these two commercial Flash video encoding solutions:

The players allow you to preview the video, the encoder allows you to create the video, and Flash Professional 8 lets you create the video application. When you install Flash Professional 8, the Encoder is also installed.

Flash 8 Video Encoder: This stand alone application is how the Flash video is created.

Flash Professional 8: You can’t get into the Flash video game without this cross-platform application.

I’m recommending QuickTime Pro and Windows Media Player simply because it’s best to test your video in both, if possible. The key word here is “Player.” That is about all you can do with this software: Play the video on a PC or a variety of Windows-based devices, ranging from cell phones to the recently released Zune device.

Windows Media Player: This is the standard for the PC.

The current version of the application is Version 7 (Mac and PC) and you can download it at

QuickTime Pro: Pay the extra cash for this because it allows you to save videos in a variety of formats, and is a very basic editing tool for such things as removing those few seconds of black screen at the start of the video.

The tools you need to get going are not as extensive as you may think.

Though the process is dead simple, the entire workflow can be both technical and, especially if you are new to Flash video, a little intimidating. I’ll deal with the entire process, from someone handing you a video to a user actually viewing the Flash video in a browser, and you’ll do it without needing to know any code. You can jump right into preparing videos with Flash just by reading this article and some of the other resources I’ll recommend at the end. You won’t need to learn how to do Flash animations-or learn anything else about Flash-in order to put videos online. In this installment, let’s get down to business and actually put a video on a site. In the first two articles in this series, I traced the rise of the Flash video as a streaming media format, and demystified much of the hype around Flash video. Share your comments on this topic with other web professionals

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