FLASH: Preload Sound in MC or on Main Timeline

[Marc Hoffman, Poison Dart Frog Media]

This is a follow-up on an earlier post. I had never tried preloading a 

large sound by setting the Sync type to "stop." I used a sound that is 107k 

(after compresssion in Flash). I placed the sound in Frame 2 using two 

methods. In one method I placed it directly on the timeline. In the other 

method I placed in within a movieclip on the timeline. I then watched it 

stream under Test movie and also looked at the Size Report. In both cases, 

the movie waited in Frame 1 until the sound was loaded, then proceeded to 

the following frames. In frame 14 I had the same sound, set to Stream, on 

the main timeline. When playback reached that frame, the sound played with 

no visible delay (I had a numeric countdown up to that point, so I would 

see if there was a pause in the playback at frame 14).


Conclusion: Placing a sound in Stop sync mode, whether in a movie clip or 

on the main timeline, will effectively preload that sound and will hold up 

the movie while it is preloading, even though the sound does not play. The 

sound will then be ready to play later in the movie.


Comment: It is always overkill to entirely preload Flash content. By 

mathematics, you can reasonably calculate how much of a movie needs to 

preload in order for the remainder to stream in time to meet the demands of 

the movie. In other words, it always makes sense for the movie to begin 

playing before it's 100% loaded. The only exceptions I can think of are 1) 

when the Flash constitutes a splash or navigation page which needs to be 

entirely present (often a misuse of Flash!) or 2) when the movie is very 

small except for one huge Event sound (in which case you might as well 

stream the sound!).


Marc Hoffman


Poison Dart Frog Media: Specializing in Flash Animation and Digital Audio 

Production

Our latest Flash job is on display at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/rickfrnd>

See our Flash portfolio at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/portfolio>

(featured in Flash 3 Web Animation, by Ken Milburn)



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