Get Your Flash Videos on TV
 by: Lisa Janice

Getting your Flash on TV? Isn’t Flash for the Web? Yeah, that’s right. Macromedia's Flash can be used to create videos for television. Why would you want to do this if it's gonna cost you time and money? Whether it's a personal reel for friends and family or a professional reel for work, it's fun to see your work on TV. Even though we love the web, television is still king. You won't be tied up by your PC. Just get your Flash animation on videos to share with your friends, family, and clients, etc.

Flash's ability to flow from the Web to television is aiding a confluence between mainstream and Internet media. So, how to have your favorite Flash animated TV show?

First, You must convert the Flash animations to videos and then to DVD. If your video does not conform to a 3:2 (1.33:1) aspect ratio you have to also make it match that ratio. This can be done by either letterboxing it within a 1.33:1 frame or panning and scanning it across a 1.33:1 frame. Otherwise the output will be streched out and everythings gonna look all funky.

You will also need to think in terms of acceptable colors TT. For example, allow you to mix color that are safe for TV. But often this is also a fairly simple to correct during post, the explanation is more complicated than the solution.

The least amount of dynamic elements you use in your film, the easier it will be to properly covert it to video. Movie clips symbols and actionscript based animation can only be converted to video propperly through the use of third party video conversion tools. Also many NLE's are now supporting SWF import but its also limited, it may help to export the swf in version 5 or 6 format to increase chances of compatibility.

You can also create flash based interactive menu templates of your on DVD. You can not only select menu templates from the preset ones for your swf slideshows, but also edit or even create your own menu templates with your own photos and pictures.

Finally, burn your Flash files to DVD/VCD/SVCD. DVDs and CDs are not that different, what can be different is the way they are going to be used. For example, DVDs can be thought of and used as if they were just really large capacity storage CDs or DVDs can be much more. Now the first thing you might need to clarify is your target audience for your DVD. If you are targeting PC users only that's one set of circumstances or if you are targeting TV with DVD player users that's a different audience and design issue.

Many programs will enable you to create and burn such a Flash videos DVD disc and show TV. If you want a practical tool, I recommend FlashOnTV (http://www.flash-on-tv.com)

About The Author

Lisa Janice, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters