Showing posts with label applications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label applications. Show all posts

Playing music in Cakewalk Music Creator 6 with a computer keyboard

Have you ever wanted to play music with your computer keyboard when you don't have a regular MIDI keyboard at hand? This time-saving feature is usually available at most music creation software, but unfortunately, it isn't built as part of Cakewalk Music Creator 6 Touch.

That's why I found out a way to use your regular computer keyboard as a MIDI keyboard that would be recognized by Music Creator 6, so you can compose some quick musical experiments even when you are on the go! The following sections will detail the steps to get this nice feature working on your music creation software.

Using a computer keyboard as music keyboard

How to make Cakewalk Music Creator 6 Touch to recognize your computer keyboard as MIDI input

The procedure to have your keyboard recognized as a MIDI keyboard in any music creation software would follow these steps:

  • A virtual MIDI keyboard should capture the keystrokes from your computer keyboard and turn then into MIDI.
  • This MIDI information should be rerouted from the output of the virtual keyboard to the MIDI input of your music creation software.
Use your computer keyboard as MIDI input

Getting your keyboard to work with Music Creator is easier than it seems, once you have the following two software programs:

  • VMPK. It is a useful open source project that stands for Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard. VMPK will recognize the keystrokes in your computer keyboard as MIDI input. It can be downloaded from here, where other detailed usage instructions are available.
  • loopMIDI. This program, created by Tobias Erichsen, provides a reliable and extremely simple way to reroute your virtual MIDI cables. It works from Windows XP to Windows 8 systems, supporting both, 32 and 64 bit systems. It can be downloaded from the author's website here.

Detailed steps to use your computer keyboard as a MIDI input in Music Creator 6 Touch

Once you have Cakewalk Music Creator 6 Touch installed in your computer, as well as the other two previously mentioned programs, you just need to follow these steps to start playing and recording music from your computer keyboard.

First, run loopMIDI by executing loopMIDI.exe. Click the plus (+) symbol to add a new loopback MIDI port. In the example, we created a new MIDI port with its default name, loopMIDI Port. Don't close loopMIDI, since you'll need this program to be running as a background process in order for the MIDI reroute to take effect.


Then, run VMPK.exe to execute the Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard software. It will start capturing the keystrokes from your computer keyboard as MIDI input, as long as its window is selected and has focus as an active window. Select Edit > MIDI Connections to configure the MIDI output of this program.

edit virtual keyboard MIDI connections

We want the output of this virtual keyboard to go towards our recently created virtual loop MIDI port. That's why inside the VMPK MIDI setup menu we should be selecting the name of the new loopMIDI port as an Output MIDI Connection – in this example, we select our previously created port named “loopMIDI Port” and hit OK.

output MIDI connection

Here's where Cakewalk Music Creator 6 Touch comes into play. We are already recognizing the keystrokes from our computer keyboard, and sending them to a new MIDI port that would reroute them as a MIDI input. So the next step is to configure Music Creator 6 to use this virtual port as its MIDI input. Inside Music Creator, open the preferences menu by selecting Edit > Preferences.

edit Music Creator preferences

Inside the Music Creator preferences window, select Devices under the MIDI section. The top list will display all available MIDI inputs under the Inputs label. Look for the name of the virtual MIDI loop port you just created – loopMIDI Port in our example – select it by checking the box at the left of its name, and click okay.

Cakewalk Music Creator MIDI input devices

And that's all! Cakewalk Music Creator will now recognize your keystrokes as MIDI input (as long as your VMPK window is the selected, active window, and as long as the loopmidi software is running,) allowing you to record (and even step-record) the notes of your songs directly from your computer keyboard.

Even when nothing can replace a full music keyboard, this is a quite time-saving solution if you don't have a MIDI keyboard at hand or if you are composing music on the go.



WhatsApp is now available only for iPhone.

The messaging app "Whatsapp", is no more available for the iPod and iPad because of a decision taken by Apple, and it has now removed from the App Store for those devices. Now the WhatsApp App is only available for iPhone.

While WhatsApp for Android is free, WhatsApp has a price in the App Store, and Apple is not refunding the amount of any previous purchase.

WhatsApp keeps working on those iPad and iPod devices in which it is still installed. But you won't be able to update or purchase WhatsApp for iPad or iPod anymore.

Those iPod and iPad users who had already purchased it and who want to keep using it in the near future will be able to do so as long as they don't erase the installed app, and as long as the installed version remains compatible enough, because there's no (legal) way to get a WhatsApp app for your iPad or iPod.

You can create a backup of the app syncing the device with iTunes in your own computer, and then copying the file "WhatsApp.ipa" located inside the folder: "C:\Documents and Settings\Windows username\My documents\My music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications" (in Windows XP; other newer Windows operating systems store the app data in a similar route).

Note: that files has a unique ID, and works only in the device in which the original purchase of the app took place, as it is synchronized with the user's iTunes account. Copying and pasting that WhatsApp data file in a different iPad or iPod will make the app to stop working.

How to get your tracks back on Spotify

Maybe when you entered at some of your playlists at Spotify, you found out that one or more of your Spotify tracks are missing, as if those songs were erased from your playlist automatically.

Well, your tracks weren't erased. The fact is that Spotify is continuosly dealing with record companies and all sorts of music publishing companies. That's why Spotify may have lost the play rights for those songs, and then they decided to remove those songs temporarily. But these songs haven't been erased from your playlist: these songs have only been hidden.

You cannot play those songs, but you can get your tracks back on Spotify (keeping your playlists, so you may be able to listen to that songs in the future, if they restore such songs, or to keep just a backup of your musical preferences). This is how to do it:

  • In Spotify's main menu, click Edit / Preferences (Control + P).
  • Disable the checkbox (if you already had it marked) tagged as Hide unplayable tracks in Spotify's playlist section inside this Preferences menu.

And that's how to get your tracks back on Spotify when temporary song removals take place!

From an original post by Dremin.

List of anti-malware tools

Are you worried about spyware or malware installed on your PC? Here's a list of 5 useful anti malware tools.

My 3 weapons of choice for malware removal would be as follows:

  • Spybot search and destroy is a free tool for Windows (compatible with all Windows versions from Windows 95) that will detect and remove malware applications.
  • AdAware's free version provides spyware detection and removal features, suspicious file submission services and some resident system protection services.
  • Hijack This provides advanced logs of running processes that will allow you to identify installed malware (or to ask an expert with highly detailed malware information).

Now you can keep your PC safe and clean of malware with these advanced free anti-malware tools.

Real time webpage comparison in different Explorer Versions

With the recent release of Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft has added some subtle changes about how the HTML web pages are rendered. So the new challenge is: how to upgrade web pages that work in the old IE 6 to work in the newer Explorer 7 and 8 versions?

Fortunately, Microsoft has released a new tool to help migrating websites optimized for Internet Explorer 6 to the new Explorer 7 and 8: Expression Web SuperPreview.

Super Preview allows real time webpage comparison of the HTML rendering using different Explorer versions. Both webpages are simultaneously displayed, overlapping the output of each Explorer window, so you can detect (and correct) even the most subtle difference of Internet Explorer!

Sevenup: say no to the old Internet Explorer versions

If you ask me about what web browser to choose, I would suggest you to install Firefox because its customization capabilities and ease of use, or Chrome because it's really fast loading webpages.

But I'll have to admit that Microsoft Internet Explorer has been improved a lot in its latest releases (mainly because its interface was a copy of inspired by the graphic interface of Firefox). And now we are very close to the improved Internet Explorer 8 release.

There's an interesting open source javascript project that encourages users to upgrade user versions to Explorer version 7 an higher: Sevenup. Add this simple line of javascript and then you can even require the upgrade to access your webpages, or leave it just as a suggestion for outdated users.

Another similar project is the IE6 Upgrade Warning which also features translated warning messages and a carefully designed layout to encourage users about updating their web browsers.

It seems like a good initiative for a safer web browsing (and to reduce the headaches of website designers).

Aviary is overhyped

If you are one of the 4 people in the world who has not received Aviary spam yet, let me introduce you what is aviary. Aviary is a set of graphic design and image editing tools which can be directly used on your web browser to create professional looking results.

At a first glance, Aviary's excellent web design, impressive Flex programming and surprising image gallery will amaze you. But, after a careful analysis, you may find out that Aviary is overhyped.

For serious purposes, Aviary tools aren't free

The main drawback of Aviary is that, if you want to create something serious with Aviary, then you will have to skip the free software part. Yes, if you want to create professional images, then Aviary is not free, because with the free Aviary tools you would be giving away your source files and your final images for their self promotion. You would be enabling other users to create derivative images from your work too.

Does any professional designer want to share every design secret with other designer in the world, or let them build derivative works upon their images? Any professional designer interested in surrendering some rights of every creation? No? Then Aviary isn't free for professionals.

And then there is the payment method part. You purchase a yearly subscription (around 85$ a year), and they claim that you are saving money, because graphic design software programmers charge too much to their customers. Well, if you purchase a single license of Adobe Photoshop, then you will have a lifetime license of a professional design application, which is less expensive than a lifetime subscription to Aviary (at least, if everything goes well with your health).

Aviary tools aren't better than other Open Source tools

If Aviary tools were unique and really impressive, they would be worth the money, right? But the truth is that there are several open source graphic design programs that let you do the same tasks. And hey, these programs let you create professional images without taking for granted some copyright rights or source files from your designs.

So let's analyze whether Aviary tools are really unique:

  • Phoenix is an online image editor similar to Photoshop, with layers and effects support. However, there's already a free online version of Photoshop, as well as other online free photo editing software as Picknik or Pixlr. But if you want to be serious about image editing, then chose an off-line open source image editing software such as Paint.NET or the multiplatform GIMP.
  • Raven is the first online vector drawing software. But once more, there's another vector drawing program out there that is completely free and open source: Inkscape. Nevertheless, both programs are rather limited compared with Adobe Illustrator.
  • Peacock is called a visual laboratory because it lets you experiment with plenty of image editing effects using a node based interface (such as Apple Shake). I have to admit that Peacock is a quite unique tool. But is by far the most complex one, and rather experimental. If you want quick, abstract eye-candy, choose some free fractal generator such as Aphopysis and tweak the results with something like Photoshop.
  • Toucan is a tool to select color swatches and palettes. It is very similar to the free color online tool provided by Adobe, Kuler.

Yes, good online software, but nothing extremely useful or innovative: there are completely free alternatives for each tool out there.

What new Aviary tools are coming in the future?

Till it isn't created, it shouldn't be reviewed. But let's take a look at what's coming to Aviary. Are there any really free open source alternatives to these graphic design tools?

  • Myna and Roc are an audio editor and a music generator. Is this something FL Studio like?
  • Hummingbird is a 3D modeler. Would this one be even better than the famous free, open source and powerful Blender?
  • Eagle is a pixel pattern recognition tool. I wonder what is this about...
  • Ibis is a font creator software. There aren't many free font creators for Windows out there (I only know the combination of Font Forge plus Cygwin). But if you want to keep full copyright with no derivatives on your fonts, then you may afford the powerful Font Creator.
  • Owl is an online desktop publishing program. Yes, there aren't other "free" desktop publishing programs, but, if you want to create a simple brochure you can use something like Photoshop or Illustrator. And if you are willing to create an extensive document, why use an online tool when you need to carry big document source files?
  • Penguin is a free online word processor. Are we reinventing the wheel? Did we already hear of Google Docs or Open Office?
  • Starling is an online video editor. It seems interesting as there aren't many functional free alternatives. Or may it end as another Windows Movie Maker?
  • Pigeon is a painting simulator. Like Corel Painter Essentials (which is bundled for free with many drawing tablets and that costs like a single year subscription)?
  • Woodpecker is a smart image resizer. Let's see what this smart is about. More than the bicubic interpolation? Even more than the Photoshop CS4 resizing algorithms?
  • Tern is a terrain generator. But Terragen is free for personal use, and it's the software that created the landscapes of The Day After Tomorrow. And DAZ Bryce 5 was released for free, and contains a full 3D terrain editor, a renderer engine, tree creation tools, texture editors...

We still have to wait till we can review the new tools but it seems that there are really free open source alternatives out there even for the upcoming features.

Aviary is over-hyped

Don't get fooled by the amazing sample galleries. I've seen the works of some geniuses that create wonderful pictures using the outdated Photoshop 5. The idea is that even with a software which is not impressive people can create masterpieces, because people's skills are amazing.

A strong user community of great artists and an intense marketing campaign cannot hide the fact that there are other Open Source or Free graphic design tools out there available to create professional results. Only if you are a casual designer you would want to give Aviary a try: it seems that professional designers have better free options to choose from.

Discover copyright infringements with a right click

I recently showed you a way to find image copies with TinEye. But, did you know that there is a TinEye Plugin that allows you to quickly search for image duplicates?

The image search plugin is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox, and it makes searching for images as simple as right clicking on them (without the need to submit an image file or URL).

But be careful! If you install the image search plugin you will find that checking the popularity of your photographs through Internet or defending the copyright of your images and pictures may be an addictive task!

Create stadiums for PES 5: tutorial about a custom 3D stadium design for PES

This tutorial explains how to design a custom stadium for PES 5, and how to import custom stadiums into Pro Evolution Soccer 5 for PC. It's possible that these football stadiums could work in PES 6 and further versions of PES, besides I haven't checked this yet. That's why this tutorial will focus on PES 5, where I modeled my custom stadium, which worked perfectly.

Programs needed to model a 3D PES Stadium:

  • DKZStudio.
  • Harps stadium builder.
  • Turf Template.
  • Rhinoceros 3D [to model the stadium].

Most of the software needed to create a custom PES stadium can be downloaded for free at www.pesoccerworld.com (except Rhinoceros: you can download this program by your own means, as there is a free Rhino version on the official webpage, so Google is your friend).

The steps to create a custom PES stadium are very easy, once you get it. Just follow carefully, paying attention and without any rush, every one of the following processes. If you don't skim any step of this tutorial, which many people tend to do ("bah, this step doesn't matter, let's go to the next step", and then they don't get the right results) it will work perfectly.

Modeling a PES Stadium and importing the custom 3D stadium in PES:

- Extract the RAR file which contains the Turf Template. We will work with the files inside this stadium template package.

- In your PES installation folder, inside "/data", open with DKZ Studio the file 0_text. Once inside this file, look for the file unknow_09560.bin and export it outside to edit it. (This is the PES training stadium. I will work with this stadium in this tutorial. There are other PES stadiums inside this file, named under other filenames. The process would be similar using a different .bin file (that's a different stadium). If you want to use another PES stadium as a starting point, take a look at pesoccerworld or the PES stadium list inside the 0_text file).

- Using Zlib (inside the software tools of the DKZ Studio) open the recently extracted file unknow_09560.bin. Inside this file, you should select the unknow_002.str and then export this selected file.

- Place the recently exported file called unknow_002. str into the folder stadUnpacker of the RAR extracted before (overwriting the file inside). Then we run the executable export3d. This program will create a folder called export plus some numbers. Alright, leave this folder as it is (we will use it later) and let's move on to the next task: modeling our new PES stadium.

- Create your own PES estadio with Rhino. (You could also model a PES stadium using 3D Studio Max and then export it as an .obj, so it could be imported as an .obj using Rhino. In any case, the final exported stadium file has to be done using Rhino, even if the stadium comes from a 3ds file extension. Otherwise, the next program that we are going to use wouldn't read the model of your 3D stadium. You have been warned: if you omit this, don't think "bah, it doesn't matter, I will use 3ds Max to model it", because your PES stadium won't work). So create your own custom PES Stadium starting from the stadium template Turfpes.3dm (this 3D stadium used as a starting point is inside the RAR Template). We won't export this stadium template later: it's just a guideline to position the grass. I advise you to place inside a folder all the textures that you are willing to use, because these textures will be needed later in a certain process.

- Once you have modeled a 3D stadium design you will have to save separately every one of the 4 sides of the stadium, in 4 different files, with a .3DS extension (watch out, do not confuse with 3dm which isn't the PES file format, but the default program and template file format). If you also modify the PES stadium field itself (which I discourage), you should save the modified game terrain in a 5th part. Do it your way, as you like it the best: you can erase all the stadium parts except the one that you are goin to save, and then store it in your PC as a .3ds file, then click CONTROL+Z to restore all the model of the stadium, and then erase every stadium part except the next one, and so on, till you have 1 stadium part in each exported file.

The 3ds files that you should save have to be named this way:

  • Uside.3ds = The Top of the stadium (Up)
  • Dside.3ds = The Bottom of the stadium (Down)
  • Rside.3ds = The Right side of the stadium (Right)
  • Lside.3ds = The Left side of the stadium (Left)

The position of each section of the stadium with respect to the game field (which is already defined in the template stadium from Turfpes.3dm) determines which part of the model should be stored in each file.

Remember that the stands of the top (UP) are the ones that are seen during the PES football matches (as it is the default camera of the Pro Evolution Soccer). That's why you sould pay more attention in modeling the top of the 3D stadium, as the bottom stands will only be seen during the replay.

- Once you have Lside.3ds, Uside.3ds, Dside.3ds and Rside.3ds, perform the next process on these files, one by one. I'm going to explain it using the left side of the stadium, Lside.3ds, for example. You should follow these same steps with your 4 PES stadium files:

· Open the Harps stadium builder, and click Tools/Stadium Importer. Then select Lside.3ds. Once you have selectes this file, a menu will pop-up, and then you should specify where are the texture files for this 3d stadium model part (that's why I advised you to have all the textures together inside a single directory). Once you have specified the location of the textures, a new menu will pop-up, displaying all the textures used in the imported .3ds file. You will have to place all these textures inside the square on the right (sometimes you will have to stretch and move your textures so all the textures would fit inside the square; make sure that the most frequently seen textures, or those textures that you will need with high-quality remain big, with good resolution, as the smaller they become, the worse they are rendered). Select the textures one by one and click Map/Unmap (those of you with 3D experience will recognize a simple creation of an UV Map for the stadium), placing the textures, till you complete the whole PES stadium with all the textures shown. (You will find out here that it is advisable to design a 3D stadium with few textures, or repeating the texture maps. It's also advisable to create a 3D stadium based on flat planes, so the UV mapping will be easy to define). The texture map can have neither any image outside the square nor any overlapping texture fragments. Once you have mapped all the 3D textures on your PES stadium model just click Check Bounds to verify that all your textures are alright. Under the Settings section verify that the "Flip V" option is checked if you used Rhino to model the stadium, because Rhino by default uses the inverted texture map.

Then you should click Import Model and Texture (so the program will read the 3D model of the PES stadium with the UV Map that you created), and then you should export the UV Mapping in one file and the PES Stadium model in another file with OIF extension:

- Save texture BMP (make sure you save the texture of the stadium with the same name that the side of the stadium that you are currently creating; for example, if you are working with the UV map of Lside.3ds, save it as Lside.bmp).

- Then, File / Save OIF, and this file keeping the same with an OIF extension (for example, Lside.oif).

Repeat this process with the remaining sides of this 3D stadium (Stadium Importer, Save BMP, Save OIF) with their respective file names.

- Once you have done it, take all the sides of the PES stadium that you exported in OIF, Lside.oif, Uside.oif, Dside.oif, Rside.oif, and put all these files inside the folder OIF2BIN from the original pack. Once you have copied all the stadium files in the specified destination folder click the BAT of each "side": convLside.bat, convDside.bat, convRside.bat, convLside.bat. If you placed every file of the stadium in the same folder, and if every part of the soccer stadium was alright, this will create 4 new files with numbers. Put these new files inside the folder called export that you created in the very beginning inside the folder stadUnpacker, replacing the old files.

- Now it's time to follow the same steps that we followed in the beginning, but in reverse order. At first we were extracting files. Now we are going to pack the final files of the new PES stadium.

- Once we copied the files with numbers inside the folder stadUnpacker/export, go to the folder stadUnpacker and perform the same steps you did in the beginning but in reverse order (at first we clicked export3d.bat in order to extract the stadium files from unknow_002.str to export) now we perform the inverse operations: we shall click import3d.bat, and this will put into the unknow_002.str file all the stuff inside the import folder.

- From the Zlib of DKZ Studio we should open unknow_09560.bin and then select the unknow_002.str file which is contained inside. Then we should right click on it and select import in order to import our new unknow_002.str (with our custom PES stadium) and replace the old stadium files. Once it's ready, we should save the unknow_09560.bin file. (It's very important to remember the location of this file, because this is the edited PES stadium, and we won't want to confuse this file with other default stadium). So let's save our recently created PES stadium.

Now we should open with DKZ the 0_text file, and we should look for the contained unknow_09560.binfile. Let's select this file and then click import, so we can import our recently saved file called unknow_09560.bin (thus replacing the original stadium file).

Once this is completed, we have to save the 0_text. As this file is already open, we won't be able to overwrite the file. So we should save this file with a new file name next to the original file, with an easily recognizable filename (for example,0_text_edited). Once we have saved this file with the new custom PES stadium, we should close the DKZ, and then erase (or rename, or store in a different folder, or whatever you want) the original 0_text file. Then we should replace the original file with the PES stadium that we designed, 0_text_edited, which we should rename as just 0_text, so that Pro Evolution Soccer will read this file with our custom stadium.

The new PES stadium 3D model is ready! Now, the textures:

There are some other tutorials out there that will tell you to use the WE Picture Decoder, but I have skipped that step because I really cannot stand that program: with Game Graphic Studio you can perform the same operations, in a better way, without having to save again the 0_text file if I want to edit the textures of the custom stadium again, if I think that these textures look ugly, or just if I want to replace the textures of the stadium (however, the edited textures of the stadium should keep the same area as the current textures).

As everybody is free to do as one prefers, if you want to use WE picture decoder instead, look up the PES tutorials at pesssoccerworld, or in the forums: I'm going to teach you how to do it using Game Graphic Studio, which in my opinion, is a better and easier program:

You will have to check inside Pro Evolution Soccer which textures appear in each stand of the stadium. Using Game Graphic Studio, open 0_text and look for the unknow_09560.bin file. You will find a complete list of all the textures inside that PES stadium model. Open (by right-clicking and selecting "open", inside the big work area at the top) each one of your stadium textures, Lside.bmp, Rside.bmp... etc. Make sure that all your texture BMP files of the PES stadium were stored in an Indexed Color mode (open with Photoshop all the BMP files, and select Image/Mode/Indexed Color, maximum 256 modes) and save this way the 4 files.

Open all the BMPs from Game Graphic Studio. Once you have opened each one of these BMP files, select in "all" Set Opacity, in order to make them opaque (no transparent, as well as the textures of the soccer balls, just check some soccer ball texture tutorials out there), and then drag the textures over the other textures in the list, replacing them. This way you can even change the grass textures of the PES game fields, and so on. Using this procedure you can clearly check which texture replaces each other, without having to save the whole 0_text file, as the edited textures of the PES stadium are automatically stored inside this file.

The rest consists just of checking your custom 3D stadium for PES. If any of your edited stadium textures is not rendered appropriately, check why it's being displayed wrong, place the texture in the right place of the stadium, and so on.

Take into account that, for optimal performance of the Pro Evolution Soccer game, your custom stadium should be modeled with the fewer number of polygons possible. A PES stadium composed of simple shapes (even just flat planes) is preferred. As an example, you could check this custom PES stadium, which I modeled (it's the football playground of my old school). This custom PES stadium was modeled just using flat planes: that way, Pro Evolution Soccer runs smoothly in your PC even using edited PES stadiums.

This custom Pro Evoluton Soccer stadiums tutorial is based on the original how to create your own PES stadium post by Dremin.

Video in Blogger: embed Flash video and a Flash Video Player

Videos can be an awesome kind of content to include in your blog. Embedding YouTube videos in Blogger is very easy. However, using YouTube videos has some drawbacks:

  • The actual resolution of YouTube videos is limited to 320 x 240 pixels.
  • The video suffers from strong compression (limited to 250 kbps).
  • The YouTube watermark may overlap your video.
  • The customization of the video playback controls is limited.

The FLV video format (Flash Video) offers a great amount of compression while keeping the video quality high. So I would really suggest you to create your own Flash Videos in this FLV format, host these videos on your own webserver, and then embed the FLV video in Blogger. Follow these steps to embed high-quality videos in your blog:

How to embed FLV videos in Blogger

Step 1 - Convert your video into FLV format

The first step is to convert your video into FLV format. Adobe Flash Editor has an Import Video function that quickly converts the original video into FLV. Nevertheless, the Flash IDE is an expensive application, so I would suggest you to use some free video encoder to turn your original video file (.avi, .mpg, .mov, ...) into FLV.

SUPER would be my FLV video encoder of choice.

Convert your video into Flash Video and upload the resulting .FLV file to your server. Just be careful with your bandwith quota, as video content may be rather heavy.


Step 2 - Create the playback controls

Once you have a FLV video, you will need to create the playback controls, so you can play, stop and pause the video, see how much video has been preloaded, control the video volume and so on.


Flash can also create some video playback controls, but they won't be much useful, as you cannot use an absolute path to link to Flash video controls. So you cannot embed the Flash video controls directly on your blog, because you won't be able to link to the original SWF file containing the playback controls.

The solution is to use an open source FLV video player. I would recommend you to use the OS FLV Player, which is a truly open source, customizable and reliable FLV video player. And you don't need even to have the Flash Editor to use this module. You will just need to upload the file with the playing controls to your server (player.swf).

I will teach you how to configure OS FLV in the following step, so it will be easy to embed this video player in Blogger.


Step 3 - Add it to Blogger: Embed Flash Video

OS FLV Player provides some php scripts that automatically create the HTML code to embed the FLV video on your webpage. But, since we are going to host the video playback controls, as well as the FLV video on a webserver that is not in the same domain as Blogger, we will need to embed the video in Blogger by hand. This is the code that you should embed on your Blogger post to include the video:

<object width="[Width of your video]" height="[Height of your video]" id="flvPlayer">
   <param name="movie" value="[Absolute path to player.swf]" />
   <param name="FlashVars" value="&movie=[Absolute path to your .FLV video]">
   <embed src="[Absolute path to player.swf]" flashvars="&movie=[Absolute path to your .FLV video]" width="[Width of your video]" height="[Height of your video]" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">    </embed>
</object>

Just change the following parameters:

  • Use the same width and height values that your .FLV video.
  • The absolute path to the SWF file with the OS FLV playback controls (example: http://www.mydomain.com/player.swf).
  • The absolute path to your FLV video file (example: http://www.mydomain.com/myVideo.flv).

Step 4 - Customizing the video player in your blog

You may want to adjust the look and feel of your playback controls in order to make the embedded Flash video match the style of your blog. As the OS FLV Player is an open source player, you could edit the source .FLA file by yourself (player.fla), creating a new skin for the Flash controls. However, you will need the Flash IDE to edit this source file.

There is also a very simple way to customize the colors of the elements inside the video playback controller just by tweaking a couple of parameters. Here is the sample code:

<object width="640" height="480" id="flvPlayer">
   <param name="movie" value="http://www.mydomain.com/player.swf" />
   <param name="FlashVars" value="&movie=http://mydomain.com/myVideo.flv&fgcolor=0x333333&bgcolor=0x999999">
   <embed src="http://www.mydomain.com/player.swf" flashvars="&movie=http://mydomain.com/myVideo.flv&fgcolor=0x333333&bgcolor=0x999999" width="640" height="480" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">    </embed>
</object>

The parameters that you should adjust are the following:

  • The foreground color (fgcolor, set to 333333 in the example).
  • The background color (bgcolor, set to 999999 in the example).

Conclusions

It's easy to embed your FLV videos in Blogger. You just need to convert your videos into FLV files and embed an open source video player. This technique offers many benefits:

  • You can embed high-resolution video in your blog.
  • As you control the compression, you can embed high-quality Flash videos.
  • You can get rid of third-party watermarks in your FLV videos.
  • The appearance of the video playback controls is fully customizable, so it can match the look and feel of your blog.

Take advantage of these techniques and start embedding high-quality video content in your blog!