CompuServe Messages

>> Hi Dave, Thanks for your help on my June 5th message. << my pleasure. >> I'm still having problems with Flic output from Animator Studio. I'm using A.S.s Flc compression only. Do I have to compress the AVI file first and then convert it to FLC to keep the file size down (using one of the compression options that you mentioned). What can I do to improve the 24bit to 8bit conversion? Should it be as good as a Photoshop mode conversion? Is it better to just use Ani Pro for 8bit flc output, that is what I'm doing now, but I would like to use the new AS features and interface? Thank you again, I look forward to your advice. << "better" is always a difficult word to work with… best compression is a sweetspot which varies with the task at hand. for achieving minimal size, experimentation really helps. i usually pick a very small AVI file and try out different codecs on it (settings/compression), then save out the FLC equivalent. take a look at (and reproduce if you like) ABOUT.AVI: ABOUT.AVI 509K (24-bit version supplied with AAS) ABOUT.FLC 409K (achieved by saving ABOUT.AVI as .FLC) ABOUT2.AVI 309K (achieved by saving ABOUT.AVI using Cinepak codec) ABOUT2.FLC 360K (achieved by saving ABOUT2.AVI as .FLC) ABOUT3.AVI 315K (achieved by saving ABOUT.AVI using Microsoft RLE codec) ABOUT3.FLC 176K (achieved by saving ABOUT3.AVI as .FLC) thing to note here… Microsoft RLE codec is simply 8-bit .AVI (256 color)… notice that on the AVI side of things, the file size drops weren't analogous to the file size drops generated on the FLC sides. default .AVI is 24-bit, but by saving the .AVI using Microsoft RLE codec, we not only reduce the original by 40%, but the equivalent FLC drops to almost 40% of 24-bit AVI's FLC size. Microsoft RLE seems fairly stable also for other application's playback. There is always a price when compression is maximized… keep the original 24-bit AVI around, but save it out as 8-bit AVI and save _that_ as FLC… see if that works for your app. 🙂