TheRealTimeWeb.com: Flash (Video) goes full screen

Flash (Video) goes full screen

Posted by Stefan Richter in General | 35 Comments

If you are a subscriber to the Flash Media List then you will have seen Steve Wolkoff's announcement regarding the updated Flash Player 9 that's now available on Labs. The new Player not only adds support for Windows Vista, it also contains bug fixes as well as a new full screen feature.
Note we aren't just talking about full screen real estate within the browser here but actual full screen - without any chrome! Now that's a potential killer feature if you ask me.
There are however already some concerns that this feature could get abused - think Eyeblaster.

Owen has already blogged about this heavily and put up some sweet demos (before you leave a comment stating that it doesn't work: install the new Flash Player first).
I'm brewing my own little demo right now (which would be ready had Squeeze not crashed on me again) so watch this space.

Flash Player 9 Update
Emmy Huang's Blog
Owen's Blog

UPDATE
I've used an older clip to put together this little demo.

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Posted on October 5, 2006 at 3:55 PM. 32269 views. 35 comments. Print

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#1 by Brad Outlaw on 10/6/06 - 3:59 PM

That's freakin awesome! I've been waiting for this feature for years!
#2 by petter on 10/8/06 - 2:02 PM

Goddamn! Finally back to how it is suposed to work and as it was back in the days before windows xp was realeased. Fullscreen! Now flash gains even more edge against windows media!
#3 by Rich Media Project on 10/8/06 - 5:35 PM

Here is another little demo...

Of course you will get the awesome experience using Mozilla and the updated Flash Player 9 :

http://www.rich-media-project.com/fullscreen
#4 by Phil on 10/13/06 - 2:09 AM

dude, that rocks
#5 by andy on 10/31/06 - 6:35 PM

That was smooth. What were the encode specs on your video? And what was your flv file size?
#6 by Stefan on 10/31/06 - 7:27 PM

the filesize for my BBC clip is 6.2MB. I believe the encoding was done at 500kbps video, 96kbps audio and 640x360 size.
#7 by jack keenan on 11/1/06 - 11:16 PM

Hi there, Excellent feature but..... I've got it working but what I need is for the video object to go full screen rather than the whole swf. Any ideas??
#8 by Stefan on 11/2/06 - 8:49 AM

interesting question... not sure if that can be done. Anyone else got an idea?
#9 by Rich Media Project on 11/2/06 - 9:11 AM

Hi,

That was done in this sample :
http://www.rich-media-project.com/fullscreen
When the user goes to fullscreen the size of the player is changed and the other objects are hidden.
#10 by Stefan on 11/2/06 - 9:23 AM

ah cool, now that you mention it I guess this would be fairly easy. Simply hide other elements, set video object to full stage size (or whatever size you like) and you're halfway there.
#11 by jack keenan on 11/2/06 - 3:41 PM

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm working on it now, will post my demo when its working

Cheers

Jack
#12 by andy on 11/2/06 - 3:47 PM

Once you're in full screen mode, how do you get the video itself to stretch the full size? The best I've figured out so far is to get it to go a set interval.
#13 by Peter Giesbers on 11/30/06 - 10:14 AM

What encoder did you use for the BBC sample and was it a vp6 codec?
#14 by stoem on 11/30/06 - 1:48 PM

yeah i think it was encoded with Squeeze and VP6
#15 by Dean on 1/9/07 - 9:37 AM

Looks like you can't write the fullscreen parameter in with javascript. That's unfortunate, because it means that we have to choose between fullscreen mode, or the annoying "click here to activate" B.S. in Internet Explorer.

Here's an example:

http://www.carvedrock.net/

Turn javascript on, fullscreen doesn't work. Turn it off, and it does.
#16 by Dean on 1/9/07 - 10:11 AM

Never mind. The Adobe site states you can't use it with movies that have wmode set to "transparent". What they don't tell you is that "opaque" doesn't work either. It has to be set to "window" in order to work.
#17 by Ari on 2/6/07 - 4:11 AM

Here is a commercial project that I put together with FMS2 and Fullscreen. The system does a dynamic bandwidth detection and servers 1 of 5 different quality settings. As the server is in Australia, you probably won't see the highest rez. Also, the Fullscreen param is set with Javascript.

http://getit.foxtel.com/
#18 by Lawrence Garwood on 3/1/07 - 6:49 PM

I'm looking into this flash pop up stuff.
And wondering what optimum sizes one should use with regards to flv film footage?
I'd like to keep the quality in full size mode.
#19 by Stefan on 3/1/07 - 8:42 PM

Hi Lawrence,
scaling a video up will always mean a loss of some quality. This means that you have to encode to quite a large size to retain most quality, say 800x600, maybe larger.
#20 by Lawrence Garwood on 3/1/07 - 9:05 PM

Many thanks for getting back.. Is it safe to say that 1024 by 768 is feasible?
#21 by Dean on 3/1/07 - 9:16 PM

Sure, but it's going to take a long time to load, and the video will probably be pretty jerky. It also won't fit well on widescreen displays, which are becoming more and more common.
#22 by Stefan on 3/1/07 - 9:36 PM

quality and loading times depends not on pixel dimensions but on bitrate and overall file size. 1024x768 is feasible if your content will still look ok at your target bitrate.
Widescreens and any other monitor sizes can be taken care of by letterboxing the video on the fly, retaining the aspect ratio.
#23 by Dean on 3/1/07 - 9:52 PM

Right, but a high-quality 1024 x 768 video file is going to have a much larger file size than a 420 x 300 one of the same quality.
#24 by Stefan on 3/2/07 - 9:28 AM

that's correct
#25 by Gary on 3/17/07 - 11:00 AM

Hello All,
I'm trying to accomplish a fullscreen video without having the whole stage blow too. This:
http://www.rich-media-project.com/fullscreen/
is the only example I've found.

The thread began to discuss it, but no responses yet. Anyone have it figured out?

Much apprecaited.

Best,
G
#26 by video on 3/30/07 - 3:31 PM

How in the player right menu, realizes " Go Full Screen"With " Exit Full Screen" Effect? Whether provides the FLAdocument? Thanks!

mmmcomcom@gmail.com
#27 by Larry on 4/20/07 - 10:29 PM

Quick question: how do you get objects--buttons or graphics--to appear over a flv in fullscreen mode? I've seen a few examples here and elsewhere, but no explanations...
#28 by Michael on 5/21/07 - 9:37 PM

Stefan,

will you provide the source. also, will rich media provide the source?

Thank you,
mdawg
#29 by Stefan on 5/22/07 - 9:06 AM

sorry I have no FLA sources ready for this but a fullscreen app is easy to produce just by following the Flash docs which cover this feature.
#30 by jack on 5/29/07 - 12:29 PM

Hi there, just came back to revisit a problem I couldnt solve in the past (making one object full screen and not the others) and i'm still pulling my hair out. The problem is scaling back down I use something like
function gosmall()
{
   _root.player._width=100;
   _root.player._height=100;
}
function gobig()
{
   _root.player._width=550;
   _root.player._height=200;
}

// functions to enter and leave full screen mode

function goFullScreen()
{
Stage["displayState"] = "fullScreen";
}
function exitFullScreen()
{
Stage["displayState"] = "normal";
}

full.onRelease = function() {
         if (Stage["displayState"] == "fullScreen") {
            exitFullScreen();
            gosmall();
            trace ("Exit Full-Screen &");
         }

         if (Stage["displayState"] == "normal") {
            goFullScreen();
            gobig();
            trace ("Go Full-Screen &");
         }
   }

Which will scale up the player to the size of the stage going up but not coming down. I believe the problem lies with the fact flash ignores all commands other than to return to normal when in fullscreen so it just ignores the down scaling or is it just my poor actionscript.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

JK
#31 by Eric on 8/6/07 - 2:35 PM

Stefan I see you scaled your video to 640 x 360. In order to maintain the aspect ratio it would turn out to be 640 x 480. I have taken videos that are at 720 x 480 and set my size to 540 x 360. I'm starting to read that this will cause distortion. I don't seem to see distortion happening? Am I going blind or just not seeing something. How I came up with this size was by drawing a 720 x 480 shape in Photoshop and then scaling that down proportionately to 540 which give me 360 in height. I thought the maintain aspect ratio would give me the same dimensions seen that I did scale down proportionately. But it doesn't it gives me 540 x 405. I'm a little confused with this, is it bad to not stick to 540 x 405 or can I stray to 540 x 360
#32 by Stefan on 8/6/07 - 2:43 PM

I think my demo simply tries to keep the aspect ratio. But I can;t actually remember as this is quite an old post :-)
As for why you get inconsistent numbers I'm not sure...
#33 by Andy Vincent on 8/13/07 - 1:01 PM

This is a great example of using fullscreen with images:

http://filippasmedhagensund.com/

The fullscreen button is located bottom-right.
#34 by Wayne Johnson on 12/20/07 - 3:15 PM

I really like the seekbar your using and its functionality can you host the swf for the skin?
#35 by silvara on 1/2/08 - 4:00 AM

Question...why cant i view this in fullscreen or anything else on the web either? Started about a week ago, noticed youtube cant be seen in fullscreen, but the audio works. And the bar is inoperable to except the minimize button. I reloaded adobe 9 but still no go.