Does anyone know if it is custom software that does what the website below offers? Or can it be done by shooting video with a green screen and encoding the video in flash with a transparent background?

www.innovateads.com

Demo
www.innovateads.com/demo.php

the transparent video is dead easy with flash since ver 8 and the On2 VP6 codec supporting alpha keying.
if you go the old way, you simply need to create a supplemental keying mask.

it is well explained here
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/talking_head_video.html

Thanks for that info. It was very informative. However, it didn't specifically mention how to create a finished product like on that site. It did say that player controls could be hidden or placed in different locations but nothing about the player frame not being visibile like on that site.

this a matter of fiddling with flash object properties in html code
http://www.webwasp.co.uk/tutorials/a27-transparent/index.php
then you can have it floating over a web page , reacting to mouse moves , popping up at defined place or time etc....
or another way
http://www.adesdesign.net/php/tutorials/flash/transparent_flash.php

or look at this
http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_web/web_3d.htm

i think people are underestimating this area. this is in my opinion the biggest step towards convergence (merging of tv and internet) we as users/developers can make.
sure the need for faster speeds is always going to be there but we arent using the speeds we have to full potential yet. this way we could try.
to make a website fully alive with video would be a nice challenge if you could do it.
i suppose you'd need to be fully fluent in flash and more which im not. but i did try this a while ago on my site im playing with (i have a very basic level of html, i cant even write code). it allowed me to take elemets of the design and run it through the video playing with an invisible skin.
http://www.iol.ie/~griffinpromedia/video.html

This is really good stuff. I agree with the post above that this is a far underutilized in current content. I'm going to move forward to try and implement these techniques..

that is the perfect example that it is not the tools you use that gives good results, but rather the way you use it to be creative.
nice page

Nice point Giroud.

I'm struggling with the unsolicited sound thing. I HATE sites that play sound without permission, and my own site breaks that rule!

I was especially impressed with the Trace Atkins example, how he walks in front of the html: http://www.innovateads.com/ex-online-video-trace-adkins-spokesperson.php

Is it possible to play the first or a few frames of a video without sound and ask permission to proceed with sound?

Also, what is the best & cheapest way to convert wmv to flash? I'm leaning toward Swishzone: http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?area=products&product=video

thanks for those comments.

dana i used the macromedia flash encoder. i looked into some other ones but i was led to believe that in this case you get what you pay for in terms of compression quality:filesize , but dont quote me on that.

the invisible skin works great.
its what kicked me off thinking about this.
if it would be possible to hide the player controls
as well we'd be on a real winner.
also when the video isnt moving it looks
quite good quality and would seemlessly blend in with a web page.

one could arrange all sorts of surprises, frights etc if one could cue various video clips to play at different times.

what comes to mind is those basic flash sites when they distract you by asking you to read something or count something then bring up a scary picture with sound to scare the living crap out us.

to use that approach but only on a small part of a page and in a professional, non scary manner would make a great site - if ye know what i mean.

What makes me sad it the feeling that I get when I see these virtual people appear to tell or sell me something. They remind me of Clippy, the paper clip that annoys me to no end when I'm trying to get help on a Word document. Even when you try to kill Clippy he plays a cutsy animation while he dies. Go away Clippy. You're slowing me down Clippy! I hate you Clippy!!

I'm stoked to learn this, but I want to find apps that won't give me Clippy Syndrome. Some possibilities: Celebrity sites, Dating sites (i.e. singles pay x amount for video interview), Political Canditate sites, Product Demonstration...[Help me brainstorm]

It seems that the only time I would be interested in listening to Clippy people is if I want to listen emotionally. When I'm online, I want to see facts, not wait for someone to finish talking. I can read much faster than listen. That eliminates factual web sites.

The other thing is how similar these are to pop-ups. People hate pop-ups. Clippy people might be more successful if they didn't walk onto the screen, but were already there as an image you could click on. They might walk off in the end, but you wouldn't feel like they were a pop-up at the beginning.

yea, clippys a scumbag!

but i suppose im talking more about allowing video to sit in with a webpage invisible until it shows up.

im gonna do some more on it in the next couple of weeks on my wedding page. will post when ive something to show.

I hadn't seen www.innovateads.com but I have run across www.hdmedia.ca and www.onsitevideos.com, both of which are "powered" by a company called Humanize The Web. HDMedia are in Toronto, where I'm located, and recently won a contract with Wal-Mart Canada to put a transparent spokeperson on their site to pre-sell the next Xbox. I agree that this has to blow up soon. I've played some with it myself, lacking any real background in Flash but having figured out the basic steps required. I put a short clip on a site from which I sell a DVD-Video documentary - www.toronto-island.com
It lacks player controls but I'm hoping it's short enough to get away with that, and it's a site that gets almost all unique visitors, as there isn't much reason to come back once you've bought or decided not to.

I also want to add my congratulations to Ger on a lovely web page - beautiful work!

David Hurdon

Excellent job David, I thought that was really well done on your site.

Thank you David.
Thats good solid work yourself.

One of my problems is I get so carried away that in a typical job I may find myself with 100's of layers spanning 10seconds with 59mins50secs left to fill.

I've been working on my weddings webpage and got some help from a few lads here on removing the player.
see wedding dvd banner at top:
http://www.iol.ie/~griffinpromedia/dvdwedding/test.html

My initial intention was to put as much video on the page as I could but on testing with the home pc it really struggled to play any more than 2 video files on the one page at the same time. I think it could be a gamble to expect a page of this nature to play smoothly on every pc- at the moment.

That's a mesmerizing effect, Ger. Almost put me into a trance. Mind you, this time on a Friday I'm not far from it anyway. A great weekend to all.

David Hurdon

I made a short video clip for my site, but it doesn't look like it was an after thought. All those "walk-on" videos look the same and like someone said, hey I got an idea, and it was stuck over the html page.....
Using video will only work well when most everyone has high speed access. But that looks like it will happen long after I'm dead and gone.
Jon

http://jaschob.com/

David, you were raptured!

I guess that's why in most cases they walk on the screen and then walk off to avoid the Star Trek effect. I think it would be fun to try one with a person coming up from the bottom.

I understand that you can make a keyed video to overlay in flash, but can you make the keyed video come up at any time, over whatever is currently playing in Flash?

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, Aric, but if you visit www.netvideomaker.com and hit the forward arrows on the embedded player you'll have both the overlay and the Flash video below it playing simultaneously. I know of no reason why one couldn't delay the opening of the overlay or of course introduce a play button to start it.

David Hurdon

that looks promising!

thats a good demo video david. your getting quite a good key there.
i particualrly liked the blending into the 3d scene witht shadow on the floor.

are you using aftereffects for keying?
I used to have some tricks up my sleeve for getting a good key with SD footage.

i recently went HD and im keen to experiment with keying with it. especially if the output is onto web or standard tv. im hoping for an immaculate key.
what are peoples experience with HD keying?

maybe i should post a fresh topic.

Ger, I was fortunate to find and buy Ultra 2 from Serious Magic before Adobe bought them off the market and incorporated the app into the latest video suite. I think there was an HDV version before the sale but I might be thinking of their DV Rack product. It is a remarkable tool - between the keyer and the background eraser functions it will clean up just about anything. And we used clips from two of the virtual sets libraries for the embedded video segment. Also very cool stuff.

David Hurdon

Maybe some help, maybe not.....

Two ways of triggering "events" with Flash video.

1) Cue Points, I've never used them cuz the interface/timeline is too rough for me in the encoder. Timeline should zoom in and out.

2) create a sound object from the videos sound, poll the sound objects timecode and trigger the events from the SO timecode. ( in plane english, "if sound objects timecode equals or is grater than 500: do this".) You can create a temp button/text box to to display the timecode when you click the button. This gives you millisecond control over your events.

If you are only wanting to delay (onload) the entrance of a keyed flash object over an html page, check out the layer animation extension for Dreamweaver, free from Project Seven. Lots of parameters.

Hope this helps a bit...?
Jon