On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 10:36:38 -0400 "Lloyd R. Prentice" <lprentice(a)earthlink.net> wrote: You can get the spec right here: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/licensing/fileformat/ - Myk

RTaylor wrote: That's what prompted my question. A client has specified Flash audio + slides. Flash makes sense on the client side, since vast numbers of browsers have Flash plug-ins. I can certainly use Macromedia's suite of tools on the server side, but wanted to explore open source options. I found one package, Ming, that, evidently, can generate and stream the slides, but not the audio. Even at that, best I can tell, Ming may not be that well along-- and may even be orphaned. Thanks for your repsonses. Best wishes, Lloyd

On Saturday 30 August 2003 22:01, RTaylor wrote: Because file format standards are no good to an artist unless your audience can handle the format and the format can handle your art? I know what I'd be using today if I were a cartoonist or animator and it ain't SVG... not even sure it can handle some of the stuff I've seen people do with SWF. (Kind of like how the GIF patent expired in the US before PNG ever got support for animation....) How much of the stuff at, say, homestarrunner.com is SVG ready to handle right now without making the end user jump through hoops? And are the creation tools anywhere near as useful or would they be writing XML in emacs when they should be drawing funny, TV-quality cartoons? Ultimately, when you're confronted with a choice between a well-supported and complete proprietary "standard" and a nascent, not entirely ready for end users open "standard", you end up having to decide which is more important to you: your own artistic (or commercial) statement or the free vs. proprietary debate. Most artists have enough invested in their work for it to take precedence over software philosophy. Even Stallman's hilarious "gather round and share the software" song ended up in mp3 format at some point before Ogg was ready... and I can't see myself putting music out there in anything but mp3, even now. I gotta think it'll be an even longer wait before you can have the expectation that the mainstream user will be able to see your visual work if it's in SVG format. Rob

On Sunday 31 August 2003 14:14, RTaylor wrote: Ease of installation doesn't count as much when every proprietary browser (and most Linux distributions) comes with Flash preinstalled. Let me know when it's integrated with the SVG tools, with synchronization and all, the way MP3 and other audio formats are integrated with SWF. Have you actually looked at what people are doing with Flash these days? These guys are visual artists, and they don't want to hear about SMIL and interleaved MPEG-4. They want to hear about "File/Save As", and they're willing to pay (and put up with proprietary formats) for it. When I see someone do something as nifty as the homestar or campchaos.com stuff using the hodgepodge of tools and formats you're describing, I'll believe that. Those who do will come to the conclusion (currently a correct one) that they'll reach 90% or more of users using Flash and.... substantially less for SVG. And Macromedia will sell another $500 worth of Windows or Mac-only software. Just as I think the PNG guys were short-sighted in trying to introduce another unsupported format (MNG) for animations, rendering PNG an incomplete alternative to GIF, I think that if the SVG guys are really trying to replace Flash (rather than just another graphics metafile format) they will need to find a way to integrate other media that makes sense to artists, not just to nerds like you and me. Rob

On Monday 01 September 2003 20:39, RTaylor wrote: I found out that the Corel thing you're espousing doesn't even *support* sound. Are you sure you didn't mean to pitch this thing as a PDF replacement or something? If you'd been to the links I mentioned, you'd know I'm talking about art ("content" if you would argue funny cartoons aren't art), not tools. All the bullet points and buzzword support in the world will not make a Strongbad video. I'm guessing a lot of nice corporate logos and other things for which people have been using metafiles over the last decade, since SVG is essentially the new CGM/WMF/EMF. That's certainly what Corel would like you to be doing. For the third time I challenge you to show me some real world examples out there on the web, and when you do I'll go to the trouble of finding a Mandrake package of an SVG viewer. I did look for the Corel viewer and it appears to only be available for Windows. If it's not yet practical to do an engaging, rich, multimedia presentation in an SVG file yet, just say so. (And don't forget that the title of this thread is "Flash audio" and we're speaking on a list called "linux-audio-user". That is to say, don't skimp on the music and sound effects.) They do when they have a choice between "sbemail047.swf" and "sbemail047.svg", "assets/sbemail047-01.mp3", "assets/sbemail047-02.mp3", "assets/sbemail047-03.mid", "assets/sbemail047-04.js", "assets/sbemail047-05.mp3", etc.... We have here two vector graphic formats. Both are freely available and documented with open specifications, yet for multimedia purposes, both require proprietary software both to create and to view them. One has been deemed worthy to kiss the W3C's ring, the other is already in use by at least 90% of those people browsing the web. That other one has also been mature about 5 years longer, its browser plugin is about 8 times smaller, it supports mp3 audio, synchronized and embedded in the same file, and enough interactivity that many, many people have written games using nothing but this other file format. As for the W3C's chosen format... well, you might be able to trigger some external mp3's using Javascript or something. And we heard there are some guys over there doing something with RealMedia and SMIL, maybe you could ask them to write some XML for you or something. Sometimes what's politically correct is just not artistically appropriate. Do you want your project to get headlines because it's brilliant, or because you made a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Yeah, yeah, true artists don't care about their audience, I know. Just the artists that ever *have* an audience. You mention Tangerine Dream and Skinny Puppy a few times as apparent examples in support of your cause. The truth is, both artists chose to release their music in multiple formats so as to reach the widest possible audience, despite some of them being sonically and technically inferior to the others and despite some formats being encumbered by patents and other inconveniences. Even now, you can buy Tangerine Dream on tape... not because it's better, but because at the time certain of the albums were made, that was where the *biggest audience* was. To summarize this thread: Neither Flash nor SVG allows the easy creation of multimedia presentations including audio, using free software or otherwise, under Linux. Both will cost you a lot of money to use in the first place and both have non-free browser plugins available, Flash currently reaches about 90% of the browsers out there, and SVG doesn't appear to have audio support at all. Any questions? Rob

Rob wrote: I hadn't intended to launch a flame war with my simple question but, after all, this pretty much answers it. So, in the end, the heat was enlightening. Now, for the hard questions: 1. Which open-source initiatives currently come closest to the goal of "easy creation of multimedia presentations including audio, using free software or otherwise, under Linux?" 2. How far away are they? 3. What are they missing? 4. Browser plug-in acceptance is a big issue. But I have seen proprietary technologies that download the plug-in in real time just in advance of the audio/video stream so that the end consumer does not need a pre-installed plug-in. How difficult is this to pull off? 5. Where should we place our bets; e.g. who and how should we encourage with volunteer effort, cash patronage, etc.? 6. Is it worthwhile to even pursue these lines given Macromedia's entrenched position? I realize that this is an audio forum. But wide adoption of audio-synchronized multimedia would provide a voracious outlet for good music and sound. Best wishes, Lloyd R. Prentice > Any questions? > Rob

er... because outside of the Linux community, the vast majority of the web only uses Flash for this sort of thing? A free software Flash tool for end users is one of those 'missing links'. I have seen Flash used as a wrapper for audio files which play in the browser - it works really well on Aimee Mann's site: http://www.aimeemann.com/ Click on Listen. No special players or plugins required, other than the Flash plugin that most people already have. Now if there was support for Vorbis files in every Flash player... Cheers Daniel

agreed! it might take a while though :-) whats wrong with javascript and SMIL? cheers -- Tim Orford

Actually, I've looked quite a lot. Have you looked at what you can do with Corels SmartDraw? Sorry, that's Smart Graphics. There's these too: http://www.svgx.org/tools.html ...Along with the stuff from w3cs list, Illustrator, etc...

RTaylor wrote Indeed, why not? :-) It's just my Mozilla 1.4 doesn't work with Adobe's SVG Viewer :-) Another note. Are there any opensource tools to create animated SVGs with sound inside? :-) -- Alexandre Prokoudine ALT Linux Documentation Team JabberID: avp(a)altlinux.org

RTaylor wrote Is it available for Linux? Posting an URL would be very nice of you ;-) swftools I know ;-( -- Alexandre Prokoudine ALT Linux Documentation Team JabberID: avp(a)altlinux.org