Pausing a linked .flv with actionscript

Question

Hi all.
Let me preface by saying that I'm fist-and-foremost a
designer... and an actionscript novice.
I have an external .flv and I simply need to be able to pause
it with a frame action and start it back up with another frame
action.
I found some references to "flvStream.play" through google
but I haven't been able to properly implement it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in
advance.

Answer 1

Geisen,
> I have an external .flv and I simply need to be able to
> pause it with a frame action and start it back up with
> another frame action.
The most important tip I can share with you is this: think
in terms of
objects. An FLV video, external or not, is a file format that
needs a bit
of help getting displayed. A very popular approach is to use
the
FLVPlayback Component (see the Components panel), which
includes a number of
configurable (and optional) "skins" that allow for pausing,
playing, volume
control, etc. The FLVPlayback Component, in that scenario, is
your object.
Many people use a Video asset from the Library in cahoots
with something
called NetConnection and NetStream, in which case you're
dealing with three
objects (Video, NetConnection, and NetStream) that
collaborate. Going back
further, there are Media Components that provide much of the
functionality
of FLVPlayback, in which case the focus of your object(s)
changes again.
In all cases, objects are defined by something called
classes. Movie
clips are defined by the MovieClip class, text fields by the
TextField
class, FLVPlayback by the FLVPlayback class, and so on.
Classes define
objects in the way a recipe defines a certain kind of cake or
a blueprint
defines a certain kind of structure. In the ActionScript 2.0
Language
Reference, you'll find that most classes list one or more of
the following
three headings: properties (characteristics of the object),
methods (things
the object can do), and events (things the object can react
to). In the
ActionScript 3.0 Langauge Reference (if you have Flash CS3),
you'll find the
same format, with the occasional additional heading. From a
bird's eye
view, however, the layout is the same: objects have certain
properties, and
can do certain things and react in certain ways (to button
clicks, internal
timers, etc.) -- and it's the combination of these qualities
that makes a
given object the type it is (e.g., text fields don't have
timelines, so the
TextField class doesn't mention anything about a text field's
current frame,
yet text fields and movie clips both have width and height,
and both their
classes mention as much).
So ... the way you're going to pause your FLV video depends
on entirely
on the object(s) being used to display that video. If you're
using
FLVPlayback, you'll have to give that Component on the Stage
an instance
name (see the Property inspector while the Component is
selected). Instance
names allow ActionScript to speak directly to individual
instances of an
object -- this particular FLVPlayback in the lower left, for
example, rather
than the other one in the upper right.
Once it has an instance name, you can reference that name
and invoke
FLVPlayback class members on that instance. If you've given
it the instance
name myPlayer, you would invoke FLVPlayback.pause() (the
pause method) as
follows:
// In a keyframe of your scripts layer ...
myPlayer.pause();
And to start it up again, you would invoke
FLVPlayback.play() (the play
method) at a later keyframe like this:
myPlayer.play();
If you're using a combination of a Video element from the
Library and
the NetConnection and NetStream classes, you'll reference
your NetStream
object by its instance name (this will be the variable you
use to
instantiate the object) and invoke NetStream.pause(), and so
on.
Here are a few articles in ActionScript 2.0 on the topic:
http://www.quip.net/blog/2006/flash/how-to-load-external-video
http://www.quip.net/blog/2006/flash/how-to-control-flv-without-component
http://www.quip.net/blog/2007/flash/actionscript-20/how-to-determine-completion-of-flv/
Those should at least get you a bit more comfortable with
the idea of
classes, objects, and their members (properties, methods, and
events). If
you're building a movie in ActionScript 3.0, the syntax may
change ... not
so much for quick method calls, but certainly for event
handling. For what
you're described, even these AS2 examples should be helpful.
David Stiller
Co-author, Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers
http://tinyurl.com/2k29mj
"Luck is the residue of good design."