Taking Care of Business, In a Flash

On the Bubble
Creative Bubble, which has produced video for GE, Verizon, and Viacom, began using Flash Video for client approvals in early 2003, after years of frustration with QuickTime and various MPEG-based solutions. "We would constantly have problems with player configuration; we’d get 10 or 20 calls a day from clients who couldn’t view the files that we sent them," says senior engineer Jens Loeffler. At the time Creative Bubble implemented it, Macromedia wasn’t actively promoting Flash Video. "The technology was new, but the video quality was almost equal to QuickTime, and we hardly get any support requests anymore."

Carl Levine, executive producer and co-owner of Creative Bubble, says that he was also attracted to the potential cost savings. "It’s very inexpensive compared to other applications," Levine says. "There’s no special hardware required, and it’s an open system, unlike some other online approval solutions. Plus, time is money. We can get things approved now with a speed we couldn’t have even dreamed of three years ago."

From a video production and encoding standpoint, Loeffler says, there are no special challenges inherent in using Flash Video. "The challenges are the same you’d face with any streaming video," he says. "It’s good for commercials and promotional videos, and it’s great for interactivity--anywhere the Web has an advantage over traditional or cable TV. For long-form or real rich media applications, you’ll still want to consider DVD."

Creative Bubble is also utilizing Flash Video’s two-way streaming capabilities in a Web conferencing service it calls Focuscast. "With Focuscast, clients can run focus groups or casting calls with a laptop and a Webcam," Loeffler says. "There’s no additional software, and it’s very easy to use. Just plug it in and go."