Flash video theory of relativity

A story of how Flash videos aren’t always where they ought to be when publishing online.

After I finish silently shouting abuse at the person who shot this video I’m trying to publish, I sit back and tell myself that filming is an ‘art’ and that us ‘techno-geeks’ have no right telling these artisans how to frame a shot.

At least its player looks great, and upon testing locally all seems fine. Uploading presents no problems…despite what others may think…this is an art. Finally a live test…never had a problem before. Whack all the files on the server and away we go. Except this time I’m uploading the video file and its player to a folder especially for media files, not in with the web page it is going to be displayed on.

Of course, it doesn’t work. Now I feel a fool, I can’t even do my own job properly, and there I was hurling mental abuse at the creative geniuses down at video HQ. What is called for here is a truly artistic approach…trial and error! (Those arty types will continuously refine their work but convince you it was all shot from the hip, I can be like them!)

So now I spend ages working out where I went wrong, test, test and test again, and no doubt allow frustration to get the better of me…include appropriate expletives (optional).

But finally I work it out, allowing me to pretend to you that I knew what was wrong all along:

When linking to the external video from flash, by default it is linked relative to the Flash file (swf). When published online, the swf is pulled into the HTML page which then changes the source of the swf and therefore the link to the video file. The video file must be linked to as though its player was located in the same folder as the HTML page.

Philip Spain

For once, the red tape is worse elsewhere

Last week we were guests of e-Circle, a German e-mail marketing agency, for one of their seminars at the Institute of
Directors. They put up a good roster of speakers, including their MD Boris Berten talking about how to get the most out of your mailing lists, and David Pool explaining “the seven habits of highly effective digital marketers”.

All in all plenty for us to think about, since we provide the content for many a newsletter. And one of the things that made me sit up was Stephen Groom’s comparison of EU and UK e-mail privacy laws.

Is this one of the areas where EU law is enforced strictly by a bunch of busybodies when it’s implemented in the UK? Do e-mail marketers on the continent have it easy compared to us?

Actually no. Only one successful prosecution has ever been brought against UK e-mailers who’ve failed to get their opt-ins and opt-outs right. The Czechs have brought two successful cases, and France five (awarding over £200,000 damages in the process). Italy has brought fifty, and the Germans, bless ‘em, have brought at least five hundred successful prosecutions.

Here’s the rest of the table, with thanks to Stephen and the folk at www.marketinglaw.co.uk. Figures were correct as at February 2006.

UK 1
Austria 500
Belgium 5
Czech R 2
Denmark 7
France 5
Germany 500
Greece 77
Holland 15
Ireland 1
Italy 50
Malta 0
Portugal 0
Slovakia 15
Spain 50
Sweden 2

David Harbottle