In this tutorial we discuss how to display captions using NCAM’s CCForFlashAS3 component, which is already implemented in our default players (v.2 or later). These captions are stored in external timed text files formatted in the W3C’s DFXP format or Apple’s QTtext format, both of which can be created with MAGpie, NCAM’s free captioning application, or with CaptionKeeper, NCAM’s line-21 caption-conversion tool. Please note: the CCForFlash component supports the following audio and video types: FLV, F4v, and H264-AAC (MOV, MP4, M4A, M4V, 3gp, 3G2); it does not work with MP3, ShoutCast or YouTube.

Load External Captions Files:

To load your external captions, simply define the following attributes in the <media> node of the XML Playlist; the only attribute that you need to modify is “ccsrc”, which is the path to your caption file:

<media  cctype=’external’ ccsrc=’http://www.site.com/captions.dfxp.xml’ cclang=’en’ ccstyle=’true’>video.flv</media>

Link to sample XML playlist
Link to sample Captions file

Configuration Options:

In our default player we set the ”enableAutoControls” parameter (MediaPlayer’s Component Inspector) to true, so the “CC” button will automatically appear when captions are available (works with Skin Wizard). If you are building your own custom player in Flash CS4/5 (i.e. not using the Skin Wizard), you can use  the”enableCaption” parameter (Controller’s Component Inspector) to turn the “CC” button on/off,  you can use the “captionsEnable” parameter (MediaPlayer’s Component Inspector) to turn the captions on/off by default; and you will need to open the default player FLA to learn how the CCForFlash component has been implemented.

Sample Player (created with Skin Wizard):

The HD Media Player displays a custom context menu when the user right-clicks the player. Once you buy the player, you can open the FLA and alter the following action script to remove our branding and point users to your own site for more information (look for the scripts in the actions panel, scene 1, frame 1). We highly recommend using the context menu (i.e. do not delete it), because it is an effective way to provide more information to your users, and it discourages people from stealing the player from your site. To modify the context menu, alter the “ESA HD Media Player v.x” text (red) and url link (blue), save your project, and publish a new SWF.

import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.ui.ContextMenu;
var custom_menu:ContextMenu = new ContextMenu();
var credit:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem(”ESA HD Media Player v.x“);
credit.addEventListener(ContextMenuEvent.MENU_ITEM_SELECT, visit_credit);
credit.separatorBefore = false;
custom_menu.hideBuiltInItems();
custom_menu.customItems.push(credit);
this.contextMenu = custom_menu;
function visit_credit(e:Event) {
 var link:URLRequest = new URLRequest(”http://components.earthscienceagency.com/flash_media_player/index.php?context“);
 navigateToURL(link, “_blank”);
}