Here is another great use of Flash Video that the gentlemen will find visually stunning (ahem) and the ladies will find appealing to use!

http://www.knickerpicker.com/dressing-room.asp

According to the stats, www.knickerpicker.com went live sometime around the beginning of 2008 and achieved over one million unique visitors within three months.

I would imagine the majority of those visitors will have been male…for reasons that it’s not that hard to figure out!

Due to the clever thinking behind the product presentation, the website is very viral and although it is still in beta, with the amount of traffic it is receiving, it should have a bright future.

Oh and before we get carried away, the blonde one’s mine!

Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web written by Lisa Larson and Renee Costantini

Having got a few chapters into Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web I would say the book is a little heavy going, however as the old saying goes, if it was easy we’d all be doing it.

This book is probably the next logical step up from Stefan Richter’s book, as it drops you right in at the deep end from the start.

I will post a full review once I have finished it.

Reviews currently on Amazon.com can be found here.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book in the UK is -

http://books.theregister.co.uk/index.asp

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.flashconnections.com

Programming Flash Communication Server by Robert Reinhardt, Dave Yang and Brian Lesser.

Reviews currently on Amazon.com can be found here.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book in the UK is -

http://www.amazon.co.uk

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.flashsupport.com/forum/

Flash Media Server 2 by William Sanders.

The book has a 3 out of 5 on the publishers website.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book is -

http://www.oreilly.com

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.sandlight.com/

One of the first comprehensive books published on Flash Video was Stefan Richter’s Hands-On Guide to Flash Video: Web Video and Flash Media Server.

I read it from cover to cover in two weeks and I thought it was excellent, even though I had already aquired a lot of the knowledge the book covered.

Here is my review of the book for Amazon.co.uk -

Stefan Richter is one of the leading developers in the area of Flash Video.

Flash Video is without doubt set take over the web, simply because of the way it can be integrated with webpage’s to create a more dynamic user experience that can also be interacted with, as well as it’s ability to be able to perform the functions of a standard web page.

Stefan’s book gives a good introduction to Flash Video, starting simply with some of the considerations to be taken into account when preparing your video content, how to compress it and ultimately how to present it along with the various methods of presentation – streaming / progressive etc.

Stefan has devoted 3 chapters to the subject of Flash Media Server including an explanation of how to install and configure the software as well as discussing some of Flash Media Server’s more advanced techniques.

Knowledge about this subject is still thin on the ground and this book will give you plenty to go at regarding Flash Video.

Stefan has done a great job, putting a book out that will get people on the first run of the ladder and I highly recommend it.

Other reviews are available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk , and they think very highly of the book as well.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book in the UK is -

http://books.theregister.co.uk/index.asp

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.flashvideobook.com/

I received an email over the weekend from a company I absolutely despise.

Mediamax – “The online storage company that can loose your files and does” are in their process on trying to hide under the guise of a new company and website.

Hello MediaMax customer – xxxxxxxxxx:

We have some exciting news to share! We will be launching a major upgrade to MediaMax this month. With this release, we’re going to be renaming our service to “The Linkup” (www.thelinkup.com). The Linkup supports all of the current functionality of MediaMax, but also has some exciting new features.

The basic info you need to know:

“The Linkup”: MediaMax will be renamed to “The Linkup” on April 25. The new URL will be www.thelinkup.com and we’re expecting that you’ll love the new service and features. You can check out a preview now at:

http://www.thelinkup.com/

Current subscribers: If you are currently a paying subscriber to MediaMax, you don’t need to do anything. Your account will automatically be moved from MediaMax to The Linkup before the end of the month. All files that you uploaded to MediaMax after July 1, 2007 will be automatically moved to The Linkup. If you’d like to move additional files, please select them here using the “mover” tool:

http://www.thelinkup.com/mover

We’ll process requests made using this tool once per day through the end of this month. You can use this tool more than once if you forgot some files the first time.

Current non-paying users: If you are not currently a paying subscriber to MediaMax, you need to upgrade your account before April 25 to be included in the move. Otherwise, your account will be deleted and all your files will be lost. Click here to upgrade your MediaMax account:

Upgrade now:

http://www.mediamax.com/Brands/MediaMax/home/pricing_plan.aspx

The Linkup Prices: Effective April 25, we will be increasing the prices of all of our premium subscriptions, but, in addition to the increased stability and new features that The Linkup provides, we are also removing bandwidth limits on all accounts, so there will be no more bandwidth “overage” charges (for personal, non-commercial use only). For example: $4.95/mo subscribers will now be paying $5.95/mo; $9.95/mo subscribers will now be paying $11.95/mo. Your MediaMax subscription will be automatically moved to a The Linkup subscription that is closest to what you currently pay. Additional subscription details will be available on The Linkup web site.

That’s it! If you’re currently a paying subscriber, there is nothing for you to do (except for selecting extra files that you’d like to have moved). For additional information please visit our blog: http://mediamaxblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading, and we’re looking forward to having you at The Linkup!

MediaMax & The Linkup Support Team

support@mediamax.com

If your un familier with Mediamax, then feel free to read my other post about this company.

I’ll keep it short and sweet -

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

DO NOT USE GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS.

DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR FILES.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Adobe have announced Flash Media Encoder 2.5 is now available for you to download for free.

The Flash Media Encoder 2.5 can be used in conjunction with Flash Media Server to compress a video stream before it gets delivered to the .swf file via Flash Media Server.

Flash Media Encoder 2.5 now has support for H.264 as well as offering more support for Audio in the form of Nellymoser or MP3 encoding.

The software is currently only available for Windows only.

You can download Adobe Flash Media Encoder 2.5 here.

I finally got around to downloading the new Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV on Thursday last week, I went for the $5.00 option, obviously because I am tight Yorkshireman!

I was very impressed by the download, not only the music but the PDF files and the graphics that came with it.

On Saturday morning I immersed myself in the album and was blown away by Ghost 13, which I think is a stunning piece of work.

What really struck me was how I could envisage a visual for the music of Ghost 13 almost straight away.

After 6 hours hammering it out on After Effects, I finally came up with a short 40 second promo video for the track.

This then led on to presenting it along with getting all the PDF files in one place where they could be viewed at leisure.

Ladies and Gentlemen – I give you my very own Ghosts I-IV promo spot!

Watch the video and then click the link to see the Flash Book.

Fabio Sonnati, the Italian Flash Video specialist has posted a sample of video encoded at just 500kb/sec.

What’s so good about that you may be wondering, well it shows the capabilities of what can be achieved by the H.264 Codec at such a low encoding rate.

I think you can safely say the results are very impressive, it also plays in full screen just by double clicking on the video.

Fabio has also just published the Flash Video Factory Blog, unfortunately it’s written in his native Italian, so unless you can speak and read Italian, you’ll need to find a translator before you take a look!

Here is a picture of the rig I have recently put together to take my learning and work upto the next level.

I ditched Windows and moved to Mac in order to be able to work on more video based projects.

The rig consists of the following -

1 x Mac Pro with following spec -

750GB Serial ATA 3GB/s Drive @ 7200.

350GB Serial ATA 3GB/s Drive @ 7200.

2 x 3.0 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon Processors.

2 x 16x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R / DL / DVDRW / CD-RW)

ATI Radion x1900 XT 512MB SDRAM.

6GB Ram.

2 x Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP-HC 24″ Widescreen LCD Monitors.

1 x Harman Kardon Soundsticks II Speakers.