Proper method for interactive video

Question

Hi.  It's been a while since I've used Flash/Actionscript, and I've been having trouble figuring out the proper way to do this.  I'm hoping someone here can outline the proper methods.
Basically, I'm creating a Flash project where it will play a video, then at a certain point, stop and display some buttons, and then go to the appropriate video based on what button was pressed.  Sort of a choose your own adventure type of thing.
Without knowing the current/ideal way of doing it, how I tried it was by having the first video (embedded into the project) on one layer, and at the end of that video, I have a stop()  on another (script) layer (on the last frame of the video in the timeline), and I had the buttons (which appear on top of the video) on another layer at that same frame.  So, in theory, it plays the video, hits the last frame, stops the timeline, and waits for one of the buttons to be clicked.  Each button triggers and gotoAndPlay(), which takes the timeline to one of the other two videos that are located one after the other, after the first video, on the same (video) layer.
Problem is, I have a bit of a catch-22...  I was aware that there would be sync issues between the video and it's audio (addressed by doing the audio as Sync or something in the audio properties)... however, I was suprised to see that the video does not maintain sync with the other layers (script).   So, what happens is that it plays the video, but SEEMS to play it faster than the script layer, so it reaches the end of the video before reaching the (identical frame) location of the actionscript.  As a result, the video loops, and the stop() is hit sometime during the start of the second playing of the video.  The buttons act similar, appearing sometime AFTER the point in the video where they should.
I had embedded the video with the assumption that this would give me hard sync between it and the timeline, since it's physically there in the timeline, and you can see the frame at which it ends... and I thought then putting a stop() on that frame (but on a different layer), would guarantee that the stop code gets hit at the same time the end of the video was.
I've tried a number of things, like putting the actionscript code on the frame after the video on the same layer, figuring a single layer can't go out of sync with itself... but that didn't work either.
Looking into it, I saw that one option was to not embed the video, but to have it reference an external file (which, supposedly, would result in no sync issues).  But, in doing that, I'm not aware of how the rest of the timeline would know when the video has reached certain spots of the video.
I'm sure the proper method is entirely different from what I'm doing, but I'm not familiar with other methods.  I'm hoping someone can outline the proper procedures (in as much detail as possible, since I probably won't know about much of what you are explaining).
Keep in mind, again that this is basically what I want to do:
-Play video 1
-Stop timeline, display buttons, wait for response
-Based on which button is pressed, jump in the timeline to video 2 or 3 (...I'm assuming all the vids will be on one layer, one after the other, with a label at the start of each one)
Hope you can help.  Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi, kglad.  Conceptually, I understand, but I'm totally new to most of these things.  I've worked with actionscript and flash in general, but am still very green when it comes to things like event listeners and some of the more technical coding.
I've been frustrated with the tutorial vids I've been finding, as they are often very generic (...5 minutes of video, only to show you how to load the component onto the stage, then point to a video).  But, I did finally find one that seemed to address more detail.  It's the ActionScript 3 Video Basics tutorial on gotoandlearn.com.  All very techy code, which goes right over my head, but at least it's seemingly usable and relevant.  I just don't like using coding/methods I don't fully understand, as then you are helpless if something goes wrong.
In answer to your question, what I'm after (in more detail) is this:
-A video plays (Intro video)
-After that video, a looping video plays, with buttons (Scene selection thumbnails) on top of it (Selection menu with looping background)
-Clicking on one of the scene thumbnails then goes to the scene player section
-Scene plays, and when it reaches the end of the clip, two buttons appear, and it waits (parked on last frame of the video via a stop() command)
-Pressing button A jumps the timeline ahead 2 frames to the A video (which is located right after the initial scene video, right after the stop()), and that video plays, and stops at the end (via another stop() command.
-Pressing button B jumps the timeline ahead many frames (past that second A video, over to the B video, which is the third clip on the video timeline, consisting of the initial scene, the A clip, and now the B clip), plays that and stops.
Now, I am 90% sure that the way I am currently doing this is inefficient, obsolete, and to anyone half-decent at Flash authoring, completely wrong... but it's the only way I currently know.
I've done the above like this:
Timeline has the first (Intro) video embedded, then the second (Scene Selection loop), with a label ('Loop') at the first frame, and a gotoAndPlay('Loop') on the last, with the graphics and code for the scene selection thumbnail buttons occupying the duration/span of that loop clip, on a different layer.
I have a MovieScreen movieclip, which has a series of one frame movieclips within it.  Each of those movieclips is the full video of a scene.  Think of the MovieScreen mc as a sort of Jukebox, containing a series of 1 frame 'records' (those being a movieclip that contains the video of each scene).  Pressing one of the thumbnail Scene buttons in the Scene Selection simply moves the MovieScreen movieclip timeline to the appropriate 'record' (frame containing the appropriate movieclip that contains the scene you selected), and jumps the main timeline (via a gotoAndPlay()) out of that Scene Selection loop, to the next frame after it, which is a 'Selection made' clip (an exit animation), which plays, and then parks on the 'Play Scene' section.
The Play Scene frame of the main timeline simplly contains the Moviescreen movieclip, which (at this point) has had its own timeline jumped to the appropriate 'record' (movieclip within it), and that movieclip plays.  This is my (probably laughably incorrect, yet functioning) method to have a global 'movie player' frame in the main timeline, but have it able to play any of the available videos, rather than having a moviescreen for each scene.
Certainly, I'd assume there is a far better way to do this, most likely with pure actionscript, where the scenes are called up, and things are dynamically generated... but, again, I don't know how to do that sort of thing.
My first attempt had me embedding the videos directly into the timeline, which had the benefit of having the clip literally there on the timelines, taking up the literal amount of frames, and being visible during the timeline editing.  Problem is, it wouldn't play in sync with the rest of the layers (which was a real surprise, as I assumed that the whole point of embedding it would be to lock it to the timeline).  So, my codes/graphics that were placed on other frames at the end of the video clip's timeline layer didn't trigger in sync with the end of the clip (...which still puzzles me).
My second attempt had the videos being called on as external clips, but that also had its share of problems, plus without the clips physically on the timeline, I had no way to know when the clip ended (...assuming I was to have the actionscript/graphics on a particular frame in the timeline... which I suspect now is wrong thinking).
My third attempt used the FLV component.  First of all, the videos where about half the size that they should have been, plus where positioned half off the screen.  Today, I managed to figure out how to remedy that, so that works.  However, I soon realized that when placed on the stage, the resulting element on the timeline was an infinite duration, and not representitive of the duration of the clip, like an embedded vid would be... So, again, I had the problem of how to know when the clip ended, and where to place the script/graphics in the timeline.
Researching a bit more today, I see that you can read metadata from a clip, which may be relevant to triggering a stop() or a loop back or a gotoAndPlay()...although I'm not entirely sure how it would all work.  I couldn't see an obvious way to loop a clip (from the FLV Playback properties).  So, even though I suspect this is the proper way to be doing this, I'm completely lost on how to utilize it.
As well, I've been reading that the current version of the FLV Playback component has an issue with seamless looping... in that it supposedly can't.  So, that's yet another problem.
Sorry for the novel, but I wanted to give everyone the full info on what I'm doing and what troubles I'm facing here.  Sorry too for being green on this.  I'd be happy to watch/read some tutorials on this, but really haven't found anything that either addresses things more than just 'load it onto the stage and select the video location', or ones that are the opposite end of the spectrum, and are way over my head.