The following is an overview of some of the more common issues related to videos not playing in the SlideShowPro Player for Flash.
The Flash Player, as of this writing, has a bug where it interprets relative paths to videos (e.g., "gallery/video.flv") as being relative to where the SWF resides on a server instead of the HTML document that is embedding the SWF (the default behavior). If you are coding your own XML file, and have a relative path assigned to lgPath, this could be your problem. (Note: users of SlideShowPro Director are not affected by this player bug). Here are some ways around it:
The easiest way is to change your XML file so that all paths to content are absolute. For example, instead of 'gallery/album1/large' as your lgPath, you could change it to:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gallery>
<album lgpath="http://www.domain.com/gallery/album1/large/">
<img src="video.flv" />
</album>
</gallery>
If absolute paths aren't an option and you need to use relative paths, one option is to make lgPath root-relative. Meaning, instead of 'gallery/album1/large', you'd include the full path from the root of your domain (beginning with a forward slash). For example, '/slideshows/gallery/album1/large'.
The final (and slightly more complicated) method for keeping your paths relative is to add a base parameter to the Flash Player embed code. This will change the default behavior of all paths being relative to the HTML document to being relative to where the SWF resides. That way, both images and videos are expected to be relative to the SWF (instead of only video).
If using SWFObject to embed your SWF (which is recommended for those embedding their own Flash content), you would add base with a value of "." (a period), like so:
var params = {
base: "."
};
If you are trying to load a MPG4 video, make sure it is encoded using H.264. This encoding is required in order for MPG4 video to playback in SlideShowPro. Also, H.264 support in the Flash Player was added in "Flash Player 9 Update 3" (aka v9.0.115.0) in December 2007. Check to see what version of the Flash Player you have installed here. If lower than 9.0.115.0, install the latest version of the Flash Player through Adobe.com.
If your H.264 video plays, but not until the whole file has loaded, click here for tips.
There are number of FLV encoding applications out there, and not all of them publish FLVs with correct (and sometimes empty) metadata. Metadata is needed so that SlideShowPro knows what size your video is, the duration, etc. If you load a FLV video and the size seems incorrect, or behaves erratically, we recommend using the standalone "Flash Video Encoder" application that comes with Macromedia Flash 8, Adobe Flash CS3 and CS4. You're guaranteed to get correct metadata every time using the official video encoder.
You can learn more about Adobe Flash Video Encoder here.
Another possible issue is server MIME type. Most servers know what to do with a .flv file, but not all (like Windows Server 2003). One way to test this is to load the FLV file from your server in a web browser. If the browser window fills up with text, MIME type is the reason. Contact your web host or server administrator and ask that they please add (or check to make sure) that the FLV file type is recognized.