Using Director > Playing Movies over the Internet > Setting movie playback options |  |

Setting movie playback options

To change basic streaming settings for a movie, you use the Movie Playback Properties dialog box. You can turn streaming off and on, specify a number of frames to download before playing the movie, and make Director display placeholders if cast members haven't been downloaded yet. The Movie Playback Properties dialog box also includes options for locking the current tempo and pausing the movie when the window is deactivated.

Turning off streaming makes sense for some types of movies. For example, a game that requires all cast members to be available at once might not be suitable for streaming. Other movies work best if the media for a certain number of frames downloads before the movie begins playing. This option is especially useful for streaming movies that were not originally designed for streaming.

Placeholders are rectangles that appear in place of media elements for cast members that have not yet been downloaded. Placeholders are useful when testing to note missing media.

You can specify streaming options any time before saving a movie as a Shockwave movie.

Note: If you want to test how a movie will stream from a server before you save the movie as a Shockwave movie, first use File > Save and Compact to make sure the data in the movie is properly ordered and that redundant data is removed.

To set movie playback options:

1 | Choose Modify > Movie > Playback to define streaming options.
2 | To stop the movie from streaming, deselect Play While Downloading Movie.
3 | To make the movie wait for all media elements (internal and linked) for a specified range of frames, enter the number of frames in Download __ Frames Before Playing.
| By default, movies download the first frame only. Adjust this setting to the number of frames that is best for your movie.
4 | To make the movie display placeholders for media elements that have not been downloaded, select Show Placeholders.
| The placeholders appear as rectangles when the movie plays.
5 | To lock the movie to its current tempo settings, select Lock Frame Durations. See Locking frame durations.
6 | To make the movie pause when its window is deactivated, turn on Pause When Window Inactive.

To set Shockwave playback options, see Setting Shockwave playback options.