07/01/2007 DVD Video

1. Click "Select..." and choose a video file that you want to convert.

Click "Crop & Trim", if you want to edit the source video.

When the source video file is loaded, the program will automatically display the Audio and Video properties such as duration, dimension, bit rate, etc.

Check the list of video formats that are supported by Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash.
Click "Next" and go to the next step.

Crop and Trim

Crop

One the Crop panel:

• Left & Top
  The left-top point on picture is considered as origin. Give Left and Top value to define the position of cropping area.
• Width & Height
  Give Width and Height value to define the cropping area.
• Aspect Ratio
  Custom/4:3/16:9/2.35:1/1.85:1
• Mouse Action
  You can drag the red rectangle outline (when the cursor is an arrow) to select the area you want to be converted.
  You can also define an area by giving Width and Height, and then move red rectangle outline to any position (when the cursor is a cross arrow).

Trim

On the Trim panel you can see the "Duration", "Start time", "End time", and the navigated time at the side of navigation slider.

You can move the sliders on the trim bar to trim the video. But please note that the trimmed video clip should be longer than 1 second.

Start time slider - Drag it to set start time.
End time slider - Drag it to set end time.
Navigation slider - Drag it to navigate the source video.

You can use keyboard to control the position of slider.

• Left/Right - go back/forth 0.001s each time
• Page Up/Page Down - go back/forth 1s each time
• Up/Down - switch to the slider you want to move

2. Profiles

Select "User-defined" to enable yourself to customize the audio and video settings.

Otherwise, you can simply select one from the pre-defined profiles. The profiles are several different combinations of audio Bit rate, Sample rate, video Bit rate, and Frame rate, which can make the output Flash Video suitable for different network band width.

Audio Settings

[Enable audio]: Do not check this option if you want the created Flash Video without sound.

[Sample rate]: The higher sample rate is, the better audio quality you can get, but the file size of the created file would be larger.

[Bit rate]: The higher Bit rate is, the better audio quality you can get, but the file size of the created file would be larger. [Channels]: You can choose Mono or Stereo channel.

[Gain]: You can adjust the audio volume by dragging the gain slider. The range is from -5.0 to 30.0db. Please note that if the gain is too high, the audio may get distortion.

Video Settings

[Width & Height]: The program locks the width to height ratio by default. Click the lock button to unlock it.

[Bit rate]: The higher Bit rate is, the better video quality you can get, but the file size of the created file would be larger.

[Frame rate]: The program will automatically get the Frame rate from the source video. Keep the same Frame rate is suggested. If you want to reduce the output file size and do not mind about the quality retrograding, you can lower the Frame rate.

[Key frame interval]: The smaller key frame interval is, the better picture fluency of Flash Video you can get, but its file size will be larger.
The suggested key frame interval is half of the Fame rate value. For example, if the Frame rate is 24, then you'd better set the key frame interval to be 12.

[Zoom Mode]: There are 3 different zoom modes you can choose: LetterBox/Pan&Scan/Stretch.

Zoom Mode

LetterBox
If you adopt LetterBox mode, the picture will be shrunk to fit the target dimension while preserving the aspect ratio of source video, and black bars will be added to fill the gaps.

Pan & Scan
Only parts of the source video would be converted with Pan & Scan mode. The program will cut out some detail around the picture, which is not considered that important, to make the width or height fit.

Stretch
With Stretch mode, the whole video will be recorded at full dimension for preserving all the fine details, but the picture will lost the original aspect ratio and be literally squashed out of shape.



3. Output directory

Specify a directory. All the generated files will be saved in this directory.

Generate FLV

Check this option to create FLV file. And specify a file name in the right blank.

Generate SWF

Check this option to output SWF file. And specify a file name in the right blank.

• Embedded the video in SWF and play in timeline
• Play the created external FLV file progressively
• Get the FLV path from a URL variable and play progressively

Tip: If you have not chosen "Generate SWF", the next step (Step 4 Choose Skin) will be skipped. Click "Next", and the conversion will start immediately.

Generate HTML file

Check this option and specify a file name in the right blank, then the program will automatically create a HTML page included the SWF file for you.

HTML Options

The options here can help you customize the display properties of the SWF file on a HTML page. They are helpful especially when you want to broadcast the Flash Video on Internet. (The value with "*" is default setting.)

• Quality - Low/Auto Low/Auto High/Medium/High*/Best
• Window mode - Window*/Opaque Windowless/Transparent Windowless
• Scale - Default (Show All)*/No Border/Exact Fit/No Scale
• Flash Alignment - Left-Left/Left-Center/Left-Right/Center-Left/Center-Center*/Center-Right/Right-Left/Right-Center/Right-Right
• HTML Alignment - Default*/Left/Top/Right/Bottom
• Display Flash context menu - Check this option the enable the browsers to use context menu.

Playback

Select "Generate SWF" option, then you are able to configure the playback control in this field.

• Auto play - Automatically start to play the video.
• Auto rewind - Automatically rewind to the start when the video reaches end.
• Repeat - Play the video repeatedly.
• URL to launch when clicking - Make the browser to visit the URL you have specified when the Flash Video is clicked.
• URL to launch at the end - Make the browser to visit the URL you have specified when the playback is finished.

Tip: Meanings of Target

• blank - open the link in a new window (a pop-up)
• self - open to a specific targeted section on the same page (like bookmark)
• parent - re-open the original page from redirection
• top - open the link and make the page loaded top of browser (as default)

4. Control Skin

In this step, you choose a playback control skin you like, and preview the skin's effect.
Click "Next" to start the conversion.

Conversion Process

During the conversion process, the program will show the detailed conversion status, including:

File - file path and name.

Estimated time - the overall estimated time that the conversion would take.

Elapsed time

Time Left Progress - the finished percentage of the conversion.

Post-processing Options

You can choose to let the program:

Play a sound when conversion is finished.

Shut down the computer when conversion is finished.

Conversion Result

After the conversion task is completed, the program will report the result summary.

If the target file is successfully generated, the program will show its path link.
Click the link to open the file. Otherwise, you can right-click on the link and choose "Open Folder" or "Open File".