What is the best practice for full browser video to achieve the highest quality?

Question

I'd like to get your thoughts on the best way to deliver full-browser (scale to the size of the browser window) video. I'm skilled in the creation of the content but learning to make the most out of Flash CS5 and would love to hear what you would suggest.
Most of the tutorials I can find on full browser/scalable video are for earlier versions of Flash; what is the best practice today? Best resolution/format for the video?
If there is an Adobe guide to this I'm happy to eat humble pie if someone can redirect me to it; I'm using CS5 Production Premium.
I like the full screen video effect they have on the "Sounds of pertussis" web-site; this is exactly what I'm trying to create but I'm not sure what is the best way to approach it - any hints/tips you can offer would be great?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Use the little squares over your video to mask the quality. Sounds of Pertussis is not full screen video, but rather full stage. Which is easier to work with since all the controls and other assets stay on screen. You set up your html file to allow full screen. Then bring in your video (netstream or flvPlayback component) and scale that to the full size of your stage  (since in this case it's basically the background) . I made a quickie demo here. (The video is from a cheapo SD consumer camera, so pretty poor quality to start.)
In AS3 is would look something like
import flash.display.Loader;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.display.Bitmap;
import flash.display.BitmapData;
import flash.ui.Mouse;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.display.StageDisplayState;
stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
// determine current stage size
var sw:int = int(stage.stageWidth);
var sh:int = int(stage.stageHeight);
// load video
var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect(null);
var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc);
var vid:Video = new Video(656, 480); // size off video
this.addChildAt(vid, 0);
vid.attachNetStream(ns);
//path to your video_file
ns.play("content/GS.f4v"); 
var netClient:Object = new Object();
ns.client = netClient;
// add listener for resizing of the stage so we can scale our assets
stage.addEventListener(Event.RESIZE, resizeHandler);
stage.dispatchEvent(new Event(Event.RESIZE));
function resizeHandler(e:Event = null):void
// determine current stage size
    var sw:int = stage.stageWidth;
    var sh:int = stage.stageHeight;
// scale video size depending on stage size
    vid.width = sw;
    vid.height = sh;
// Don't scale video smaller than certain size
    if (vid.height < 480)
    vid.height = 480;
    if (vid.width < 656)
    vid.width = 656;
// choose the smaller scale property (x or y) and match the other to it so the size is proportional;
    (vid.scaleX > vid.scaleY) ? vid.scaleY = vid.scaleX : vid.scaleX = vid.scaleY;
// add event listener for full screen button
fullScreenStage_mc.buttonMode = true;
fullScreenStage_mc.mouseChildren = false;
fullScreenStage_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, goFullStage, false, 0, true);
function goFullStage(event:MouseEvent):void
    //vid.fullScreenTakeOver = false; // keeps flvPlayer component from becoming full screen if you use it instead  
    if (stage.displayState == StageDisplayState.NORMAL)
        stage.displayState=StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN;
    else
        stage.displayState=StageDisplayState.NORMAL;