Severe Frustration!!!

[genesisfloorcare webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

OK,

Please excuse the slightly angered tone of this post but I'm in serious trouble and overwhelmed by frustration.

I work for a company "attempting" to produce CD ROM business cards for real estate agents, lawyers, etc. The discs are comprised of a main opening navigational scene. You click the navigation buttons and the basic sequence take you right to a flash sprite, out of that into a video compressed with sorenson, then into another sprite, then back to the main scene. All of the above are linked together by lingo commands both in the flashes themselves and through the script channels. I.E., you click a button and it takes you through the chain above and immediately back to the menu.

Problems...........

1.Artifacting
I've tried everything suggested to me (and a lot of VERY time consuming suggestions) that are to no avail. I make sprites direct to stage, lock step, etc. Use the correct codes, still get the artifacting espescially when it jumps from sprite to video.

2.COMPLETE DISC STUTTERING!!!!!
I realize there are computers out that that have issues with projectors but we're not talkin crappy laptops here folks. These are P4 state of the art brand new computers that when you insert the disc, it "MAY" play a sprite or 2 fine, but once coming out of a video and into another flash, the sprite and the resdt of the presentation for that matter stutters and chunks along pathetically.

I've tried making the sprites 15fps instead of 30 whcih was supposed to be the key. NOT!
I've tried making as much as possible direct to stage - unloading everything at 3 - preloading - puppet tempo's, on and on and on and on and on.........

What I have after months of owning Director, spending hours in these forums being told "To avoid this, you have to use this workaround" for issue after issue after issue.

My boss has salesmen out in the field being made fools of because discs are stuttering, crashing, failing. Who do you think takes the heat for this - ME and my two partners back in production while the rest of the company sits and thinks we're incompitent. I've obviously exaudted my 2 free support sessions and paid for over $800 in others.

Frustration is not longer the word - jobs on the line is more like it. Which brings me to my purpose here.

A.Is anyone willing to let me zip and mail my director, projector, and files to you to examine. I don't have anything to give except for some serious hearfelt thanks and maybe credit on the disc somehowe if you help me resolve my problems for the company.

B.If flash and director are substandard products for the serious multimedia I'm tryign to produce with too many bugs, workarounds, and "oh, if you're experiencing this - try this, and if that doesn't work.................". - then someone please tell me. I like to think I'm the type of guy that works at a problem til the problems is gone but I'm at the end of the road now. I've even been offered pretty sweet incentives by the boss to get this issue settled and I simply can't reach a conclusion.

Sorry for the excesive rant but I and my company need someones help urgently.

Is anyone willing to step up or can you at least tell me if I need to search other avenues for my authoring needs. Because right now I'm feeling I've paid macromedia thousands for WAY substandard results.

Thank you

Jay Smith
A Rising Star Production

ps - Serious replies only. Please don't kill my thread with the usual - "Director is not a toy, you have to take time to master it" replies. Jobs are on the line and too important for this post to get buried with empty responses. Sorry, but thanks for understanding.

[James]

Hi genesisfloorcare, don't loose heart there's always a solution to it
somehow, but I know what its like when things get like this. you can send
the zip file over to me if you like and I'll take a look and see if a fresh
pair of eyes can help. On a side note however can I ask your reason for
sticking to a swf in a director movie, as this seems to be the root of all
the problems from your post below? I'm assuming its down to the small size
limit you have on business cards. But anyway send the file over
[email]james@twisted-pixel.com[/email] and I'll take a look at it.

James

"genesisfloorcare" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:bnmp67$ep$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> OK,
>
> Please excuse the slightly angered tone of this post but I'm in serious

trouble and overwhelmed by frustration.

>
> I work for a company "attempting" to produce CD ROM business cards for

real estate agents, lawyers, etc. The discs are comprised of a main opening
navigational scene. You click the navigation buttons and the basic sequence
take you right to a flash sprite, out of that into a video compressed with
sorenson, then into another sprite, then back to the main scene. All of the
above are linked together by lingo commands both in the flashes themselves
and through the script channels. I.E., you click a button and it takes you
through the chain above and immediately back to the menu.

>
> Problems...........
>
> 1.Artifacting
> I've tried everything suggested to me (and a lot of VERY time consuming

suggestions) that are to no avail. I make sprites direct to stage, lock
step, etc. Use the correct codes, still get the artifacting espescially when
it jumps from sprite to video.

>
> 2.COMPLETE DISC STUTTERING!!!!!
> I realize there are computers out that that have issues with projectors

but we're not talkin crappy laptops here folks. These are P4 state of the
art brand new computers that when you insert the disc, it "MAY" play a
sprite or 2 fine, but once coming out of a video and into another flash, the
sprite and the resdt of the presentation for that matter stutters and chunks
along pathetically.

>
> I've tried making the sprites 15fps instead of 30 whcih was supposed to be

the key. NOT!

> I've tried making as much as possible direct to stage - unloading

everything at 3 - preloading - puppet tempo's, on and on and on and on and
on.........

>
> What I have after months of owning Director, spending hours in these

forums being told "To avoid this, you have to use this workaround" for issue
after issue after issue.

>
> My boss has salesmen out in the field being made fools of because discs

are stuttering, crashing, failing. Who do you think takes the heat for
this - ME and my two partners back in production while the rest of the
company sits and thinks we're incompitent. I've obviously exaudted my 2 free
support sessions and paid for over $800 in others.

>
> Frustration is not longer the word - jobs on the line is more like it.

Which brings me to my purpose here.

>
> A.Is anyone willing to let me zip and mail my director, projector, and

files to you to examine. I don't have anything to give except for some
serious hearfelt thanks and maybe credit on the disc somehowe if you help me
resolve my problems for the company.

>
> B.If flash and director are substandard products for the serious

multimedia I'm tryign to produce with too many bugs, workarounds, and "oh,
if you're experiencing this - try this, and if that doesn't
work.................". - then someone please tell me. I like to think I'm
the type of guy that works at a problem til the problems is gone but I'm at
the end of the road now. I've even been offered pretty sweet incentives by
the boss to get this issue settled and I simply can't reach a conclusion.

>
> Sorry for the excesive rant but I and my company need someones help

urgently.

>
> Is anyone willing to step up or can you at least tell me if I need to

search other avenues for my authoring needs. Because right now I'm feeling
I've paid macromedia thousands for WAY substandard results.

>
> Thank you
>
> Jay Smith
> A Rising Star Production
>
> ps - Serious replies only. Please don't kill my thread with the usual -

"Director is not a toy, you have to take time to master it" replies. Jobs
are on the line and too important for this post to get buried with empty
responses. Sorry, but thanks for understanding.

>
>

[vij010]

Dear Jay

Hi...I would like to help you and i mean serious help here...could you outline to me where exactly the problem starts...does it start with the first flash sprite or does it start with the video...from what you've posted i think you're having a video that used compressed with sorenson in flash and have imported that video into director...am i right ?...

1. Artifacting- are you meaning that the stage doesn't update/or you have ghost frames ?...One thing that i've always worked with and it's helped me was use a transition, the cast member was an external link..., the other issue is the file size of the cast member...another point to consider is that CD-ROMs mostly have a low access rate than Hard disks...so when compressing ensure that your bitrate is lower so as to help the CDROM pump data correctly to your memory card...

2. Disc Stuttering : How have you laid out sounds ?...have you out them in flash ?.... or in Director ?... if it's in Flash, use MP3 or any compression that it supports ( i have'nt used Flash MX) and use actionscript to trigger the sound..this way you use actionscript to control the sound..and it takes off the load on the score... if you're using Director use swa compression

I hope i've not been the usual guy on the forum to ask you to try this or try that...i hope these were helpful hints...if it's ok with you..can you post me a link of your file you can mail me at

1. [email]vijay@gsvision.com.my[/email]
2. [email]vijay_john_77_99@yahoo.com[/email]

I'd be willing to help you as soon as possible

-The Tube!

Vj

[genesisfloorcare webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Thank you both much. I will give more info and send the files as soon as i get into work tomorrow!

Much appreciated and i will keep you posted.

Jay

[Ziggi]

I hope the people will examine your files and help you
find solution but my general feeling is you miss good
Director basics and I would encurage you to try
less sophisticated but still powerfull solutions like
Multimedia Builder, Scala or some other.
These are pretty simple, WYSIWYG solutions
with little programming involved well suited for
simple projects like yours.

Indeed, Director is not friendly for beginners. It's
often you are keen to do something simple but
then you see it's not working like you expect,
you miss smooth motion, miss fluency, have
video flickering, etc. I ensure you it's nearly
all possible with Director but you need good
experience and knowledge to properly "attack"
the project, so you don't waste time doing wrong
from the beginning.

In fact your collegues are right - you are not a competent
Director developer. Either you arrange your projects
in such a way the computer get's stuck (e.g. you
try to perform large video while doing some intensive
sprite or Flash animation at the same time) or you
miss some basics what are difficult to guess (there is
really a huge knowledge involved into proper digital
video compression for instance).

Again, my advice is - I presume you are doing some simple
"click here - go there" sort of presentations. You show
some Flash animation, click, you go to text, click, you
show some video, click you show a picture, etc. - take
another software for your job and be happy. You don't need
a sophisticated, multi-purpose, complex and "wild" tool like
Director to do a "slide-show" visit-card.

Ziggi