Re: FLASH: Director7 vs. Flash4

[John Dowdell]

Capsule:


Flash has a small player. It's easy to port, and fast to download. It

starts up very quickly. Flash is unique at immediacy... interfaces...

universality.


Shockwave is more extensive, with more media types, more control, more

abilities. It's better for deeper experiences, more control.


--


There's overlap, sure... both can now do display text chat, assuming you

have a server. Director *comes* with a server, though, and it can transmit

media data and instructions as well as just text. That's one striking

example of the immediacy vs immersive continuum.


Media control is another seachange... Flash streams, and you can now load

movie levels dynamically. Shockwave also streams, but you can link to

individual external files, in a wide variety of formats, and pre-cache them

as desired... you can relink entire libraries on the fly...

programmatically manipulate the library to create new media types on the

fly... use cuepoints to trigger actions as particular long media files

stream in.


Or look at vectors. Director can import SWFs, and layer, scale, zoom and

manipulate each individually on the fly. There's also script control over

the individual points in a curve... shapes can undulate in response to the

mouse, or chart out current stock quotes. (And with the Shockwave

compression, even SWF sprites are smaller than they are on their own in the

browsers.)


There are many differences of degree like these. Thinking of "immediacy vs

immersion" helps give the general idea, though.


--


For more info, search the technotes with keyword "shockwave AND flash AND

(difference OR differences)", for instance. In general, if you can get your

project done in Flash, then do so. If a particular project cannot be done

in Flash, then give a look at Shockwave.


jd






John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

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