Highly recommended this book informs you about key points in Flash Video from Date Rate to frame rate it also shows some of the more sought after function. It will help anyone new to Flash video get up to speed then move on the the next book Poetry in motion for more advanced techniques

Foundation Flash 8 Video delivers on the promise of the title; to start from zero and build up. And the authors accomplish this in a very cordial way. The first chapter is all about getting up to speed quickly, from a captured file to web-ready right away. This approach builds confidence in the reader at the start, getting their hands dirty in the first couple of pages, and seeing succes within minutes.

In fact, the best part of the book is the conversational, instructional tone of authors Tom Green and Jordan Chilcott. The text flows very nicely in measured doses, complete with summaries, incidental notes, caveats and gotchas. The net effect is to make the book worth reading, rather than skimming for tidbits. I was especially impressed with the discussion of choices, which is generally lacking in instructional books. The authors take care to point out that some options are chosen arbitrarily, and others have specific impact on workflow or quality, and they do it at the right time - not in an afterward, external reference, or in some obsure footnote that few people notice and fewer actually read. Aside from the mechanics of learning the applications and features, this made me feel like I understood the processes.

Within the chapters are discussions on specific video capture and converting tools, editing applications and methods, and some consideration of how it all works together. While the focus is definitely Flash 8, the tool itself does not exist in a vacuum, so these additions are welcome and enlightening. Nearly a third of the book is devoted to integration and alternate appraoches. Most of the rest of the book talks about common situations and solutions involving Flash video, with additional chapters how various effects can be achieved using Flash's unique and surprisingly powerful built-in tools.

Something I really appreciated was the inclusion of Actionscript control and interaction. Most videos I've seen online are geared towards entertainment only, with little to no interaction, and virtually all production being done off-line. This is basically 'static' video, as I am now learning. With Actionscript, videos can react to data feeds, user input, or just random events. Chilcott and Green give just enough information to whet one's whistle for more advanced scripting. Again, this is true to the title of 'Foundation'.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the balance of technical information and instructional conversation. The information is broad enough, and of an appropriate level for a beginner. I suspect that even video pros might get something out of this book in terms of using Flash specifically, and the scripting capabilities. And with sites like YouTube making video commonplace, we might as well make a splash with style.

I enjoyed "jumping" right into learning how to create a FLV file using both the Video Wizard and the Flash 8 Video Encoder. Then I learned how to use the FLV Playback component in Flash Professional 8 to play the FLV file, and finally publish the movie on a website. The book teaches you how to edit video for Flash using various video editing programs. It explains how you can make your SWF file smaller by connecting and playing a video through a video object and then stream it using Actionscript.

The Flash 8 Video book also walks you through creating an alpha channel video in Adobe Premiere, export it to Quick time file and import it into Flash 8 Professional. There you can trim the video to fit a web page, set cue points triggering other videos and create video on video effects. It walks you through creating filters and masks to creating video walls and choosing and playing multiple movies. All in the name of good clean fun!

This book does cover some more advanced topics like using Actionscript to manipulate a video in a movie clip to apply filters and manipulate colors and using After Effects to apply 3D animations. It provides a good foundation for any beginner learning Flash 8 Professional. It also touches upon using other products like Movie Maker, Premiere, Illustrator and After Effects to manipulate your videos even more.

As it's name implies, Foundation Flash 8 Video is geared toward those who are just getting started with Flash Video. It would be ideal for someone who isn't interested in the scripting details of Flash but just wants to figure out how to make video in Flash work.

I was suprised (pleasantly) at the inclusion in Chapter 2 of detailed lessons in using Movie Maker and iMovie to edit and output video. There is also some discussion of more advanced video editing packages. The attention to the details outside of Flash is helpful, particularly for beginners.

As a seasoned Flash developer who only recently started to use it for Video, there was still a lot here to sink my teeth into. As the book progresses, it focuses more on technique and what Flash is capable of doing with video. It includes lessons on using transparency (Alpha Channels), masks, and an intriguing chapter on Video Walls. For those new to video in Flash, this is where the value lies.

Other chapters focus more on Flash itself, including Actionscript, and ways to leverage that when using video. For those already familiar with Flash, its structure and capabilities, there is much here that is already known. I would have liked more information on customizing the Flash video components.

One complaint I have is the lack of a CD containing the example videos. Instead, users are expected to download the files from the book's Web site. This seems particularly ironic given the emphasis early in the book on bandwidth and data rates. For the price of this book, I would expect a CD with this content on it.

I offer kudos to the authors for crafting a well-written, approachable book. Some Flash books can get very intimidating very quickly, and the authors avoided that. I recommend this book to those who are newer to Flash and video.

As someone who has been working with video in Flash quite heavily recently at work, I was eagerly anticipating this book to be released. At first I wasn't disappointed as the book has a great intro to video. It goes through a relatively thorough explanation of video and how it works on the net, talking about progressive and streaming downloading, and so on. As the title suggests, this book is a Foundation book so it is not code heavy and is perfect for beginners.

There is a chapter in the book about editing video, which if it is out of the scope of the book or not, is a very handy chapter. Not everyone in the world could afford huge software packages like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere (or After Effects, depends on how you like to do things I suppose). This chapter goes over how to edit video with some of the tools that come shipped with your OS, whether it be iMovie on OSX or Windows Movie Maker on PC.

Getting back to the whole code thing, as an ActionScript developer I sometimes get let down by not seeing a lot of code (although it really depends on how you see things, because not everyone is nerdy like me and would rather not sift through code and just do things a different way). Page 186 clearly warns that this book is about Flash video, not ActionScript programming, but I believe when doing video you HAVE to know how to code around it. I see some video apps on the web today and all they have is the default FLVPlayback component skin on them. That's fine and dandy, but those things are ugly and everyone who knows how they were made just laughs at them.

Chapter 9 and chapter 11 get a bit more code heavy and even into some class programming, but the coding done throughout those chapters is geared more towards applying code to the video that make its stylized, a la blend modes and filters. To me, when I see a book on Flash video, I want to learn the ins and outs of controlling the video and making it do things like play videos in sequence, loading in the background, so on and so forth. I already know how to use blending modes and filters from the other great Friends of ED books (Flash 8 Essentials).

All in all, this really is a beginner book on video and if you're looking for a way to learn to control your videos thoroughly in and out, you won't find it here. If you just want to add some effects to your videos, this is the book for you.

Written in a friendly, non-intimidating way, this book is a good way to get started in Flash Video, including using alpha channels. Keep in mind this in not an exhaustive guide that will teach you all you need to know to complete a full project; rather it is a sampler, giving great ideas and some tantalizing tastes of what you can do with Flash video. So keep in mind you will need to study some other books and articles too to actually complete a video project, and so I suppose my only advice for the next edition is this: sprinkle references to the other sources that can help the student go beyond the trial level. But again, this is a starter book, as well as an idea book, and there is no other book that puts it all together like this does in one place.

First, I love the glossy colored pages and I hope other technical books follow this trend.

Second, this book is a great introduction to producing videos for Flash. It walks you through getting videos web-ready (encoding, compressing, etc.) It also discusses the best new web video features available in Flash 8: Alpha channels (there are so many possibilities for this in the future) and all the blending modes. Flash 8 as made so many things possible for web video that were only dreamed of before. This is a well-written, easy-to-follow book that walks you step by step through tutorials that will get you going with video quickly.

Lastly, if you are experienced with Flash video or you're willing to experiment with it yourself you could still pick up this book just to get ideas of what is possible with Flash 8 these days. There are even good ideas for combining Flash 8 with After Effects to produce some great text effects.

The bottom line is if you're new to Flash 8 video, you need this book. If you're experienced, only expect a few "hey, that's a cool idea" moments.

I had hoped that this book would bring me up to speed on how to use Flash video in a more sophisticated way than the Flash video components allow. The book fullfilled this hope about 1/2 of the way.

It did show me how to do some basic action script for the control of video in a clear way in the last part of chapter 4. I was frustrated that the authors did not extend the discussion of creating a custom video player past use of a play/pause button -- to, for example, creation of a custom seek bar. Yes, components can be used to provide one, but, as the authors point out "many Flash developers tend to shy away from reliance on components." So how do Flash developers provide bells and wistles beyound simple buttons?

The chapter on action script anf Flash video would have been much more useful if had concertrated on a real-world application instead of the "jordivision" example that is focused on how to control glows and blurs -- sure, these effects might be useful, but if one is seeking a quick way to understand how to impliment action script controls in the context of a more commerical application one might be frustrated with the example, as I was.

What is presented is presented in a clear and easy to follow way, however.