Topics
 Sound
 Timeline
 ActionScript
 Sound Design for Instruction
 Video
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Sound design (Bishop &
Cates, 2001)
 Music
 Set mood/control pacing
 Keep short
 Narration
 Text <= narration
 Environmental sounds
 Inverse length relationships
 First person (immersion)
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Sound design (cont.)
 Referential sound
 Metaphor reinforcement
 Feedback/consistency (audio syntax)
 Learner control
 On/off
 Replay
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Sound formats supported by
Flash MX
Type
PC
Mac
.mp3
x
x
.wav*
x
x
.aiff*
x
x
.au
x
x
x
x
.midi
.qta or .mov (quicktime)
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Impacts on file size
Sample Size (bits)
Sample Rate (kHz)
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Sound compression in Flash
MX
Compression
Use
ADPCM
Good for short sound effects
(correct/incorrect response,
button clicks, etc . . . )
MP3
Ideal for music, best general
purpose choice
Speech
New to Flash MX, great for
voice only
RAW
No compression = huge file
sizes, but best quality
Adapted from Flash MX Bible
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Issues with sound
 Synch problems – kicker solution
 Flash MX (previous version)
 Event vs. Stream
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Controlling sound with
ActionScript
//creates a new sound object in Action Script
mySound = new Sound();
//tells it to pull up the library member
//with the linkage name "music"
mySound.attachSound("music");
//tells it to play from the beginning, and
//loop 20,000 times.
mySound.start(0, 20000);
//tells the sound to stop playing.
mySound.stop();
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Loading external .swf files
//creates a movie clip placeholder
myClip = this.createEmptyMovieClip(“myClip”,
0);
//attaches .swf to movie clip placeholder
loadMovie(“swfName.swf”, myClip);
//plays movie clip (and thus plays .swf inside)
myClip.play();
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Video
 Sorenson compression
 Live stream
 Flash Communication Server MX
 http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/fl
ashcom/articles/odopod.html
 .FLV (external/preferred internal)
 Factors that affect video size
 Frames per second
 Picture quality
 Dimensions (height/width)
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Video compression
 Two choices internal to flash
 Need relevant codecs in order to
compress.
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