Flash 8 Cookbook

18.5. Adding Cue Points/Captions

Problem

You want actions within your Flash movie (SWF) to synchronize with the playback of Flash Video content. For example, you want to add captions within Flash that synchronize with the video.

Solution

Add cue points when encoding the video with the Flash 8 Video Encoder. Optionally, use an application like Captionate to add and edit markers and captions for .flv files.

Discussion

Cue points are markers that trigger events at specific playback times. There are many reasons you might want to set cue points for Flash video. For example, you might want to synchronize the playback of an FLV and an SWF. A common use of cue points is adding captions to a video presentation.

There are several ways you can go about adding cue points. One option is to use the cue points feature of the Flash 8 Video Encoder. Flash 8 Video Encoder is included with Flash 8 Professional, and it has a cue point feature that allows you to add cue points to the video before encoding. The program then adds the cue points to the FLV file.

To add cue points from the Flash 8 Video Encoder, complete the following steps.

1. From the Flash 8 Video Encoder window, click the Add button to add a file to the encoding queue.

2. Select the file from the queue list, and click the Settings button on the right.

3. The Flash Video Encoding Settings window opens. Make sure that it displays a preview of the correct video on the right side of the window. You ought to be able to move the playhead (the arrow above the ...