Wait on frame until video finishes?

Question

Hello,
Does anyone know if there's a way to tell flash to wait on a
frame until a video finishes playing, and then go to the next
frame? (I'm using progressive download. It has audio that needs to
stay in sync.)
Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

kalibahlutwo,
> I have imported an FLV and on import chose
"progressive",
> rather than embedding the video, because I read that if
the
> video has audio in it, it will stay syncronized better
with
> progressive than with embedded video.
I can neither confirm nor deny which plays better. But it's
good to
know we're dealing with external video.
> Flash automatically put the video into an FLVPlayback
> component.
Yupper. :) Now we're getting warmer.
> I would like to have the video play to the end, and then
> have the Flash movie automatically go to the next frame.
Here's the scoop. Just about everything in ActionScript can
be
described as an object. Objects are defined by something
called classes,
which you may think of as object blue prints. The FLVPlayback
Component,
for example, is defined by the FLVPlayback class, and you can
look up this
class entry in your documentation. Components are listed in
the Component
Language Reference and ActionScript clases are listed in the
ActionScript
2.0 Language Reference.
Classes define the properties of an object (the
characteristics it has),
its methods (things it can do), and its events (things it can
react to). So
class entries should definitely be your first stop, always.
If you're
dealing with a movie clip, look up the MovieClip class. If
you're dealing
with a dynamic or input text field, look up the TextField
class, and so on.
Consulting the FLVPlayback class, then, we find that
"FLVPlayback
extends the MovieClip class and wraps a VideoPlayer object.."
Okay, what
does that mean? Well, in this context, it means that any
FLVPlayback
instance -- such as the one on your Stage -- contains all the
features
(properties, methods, and events) of a movie clip, because it
*extends* the
MovieClip class. So this particular case is something of a
wild goose
chase. Normally, the answers you want are already at hand.
FLVPlayback is
a little different. But the documentation continues: "... and
wraps a
VideoPlayer object," so now we know to get more information
by looking up
the VideoPlayer class.
Bingo. Here's were we find the answer. The VideoPlayer class
includes
an event VideoPlayer.complete (see the Events summary in its
class entry).
It also contains a method VideoPlayer.addEventListener(),
which means we can
"listen" for the complete event. Good news.
So ... give your FLVPlayback Component instance an instance
name.
Select it and look at the Property inspector. Let's name it
vp, short for
video player. Create a new layer and name it "scripts" --
this is where
we'll put your ActionScript.
var listener:Object = new Object();
listener.complete = function() {
trace("complete!");
vp.addEventListener("complete", listener);
Here's what's going on. Events of the sort we're dealing
with can be
handled with a listener. A listener is just a generic Object
instance -- so
in line 1, we're declaring a variable arbitrarily named
listener. It's of
type Object and is set to a new Object instance.
This listener object acts as a proxy for the FLVPlayer
(actually, the
VideoPlayer) complete event. Via this listener, we assign a
function to a
complete property. In this example code, I'm simply having it
trace() the
string "complete!" to the Output panel. You'll want to have
it send the
main timeline to frame 2 -- _root.gotoAndStop(2);
Finally, our FLVPlayer instance, vp, invokes the
VideoPlayer.addEventListener() method to become a listener
for "complete"
events from the listener object.
Done. Badda bing. :)
David
stiller (at) quip (dot) net
Dev essays:
http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."