Macromedia Studio 8 from Adobe

Faster, Integrated Versions of Favorite Tools for Both Web and Video Pros

By Dylan Wood

May 1, 2006    Source: Studio Monthly

Almost every project we produce at my company uses at least one Studio application and incorporates some form of video or Flash, and ultimately, it ends up on CD, DVD or the Web. Fortunately, with every iteration of the products that compose Studio— in the case of Studio 8, that’s Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8 (including new Flash 8 Video Encoder), Fireworks 8, Contribute 3.1 and FlashPaper 2— Macromedia (now in the able hands of Adobe) is making it easier to get the job done, with increasingly impressive results.

One of the things I was anxious to see in the new version was whether application speeds would improve in Studio 8. I tested the software on several different Macs, including a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 and a duel 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5, and found slight speed improvements. Dreamweaver’s launch was at least five seconds faster than that of the MX 2004 version, and the interface seemed to be more "fluid" than that of its predecessor. Best of all, the application no longer seems to get bogged down when a lot of fonts are open.

Macromedia notes that core stability improvements have been made, but besides the slow interface responses of earlier versions, I never found MX or MX 2004 to be extremely unstable. For those of you who did, you should see a much better behaving Studio this time around.

Data-Friendly Dreamweaver

If you do a lot of server-side programming with languages like PHP, you’ll be happy to know that Dreamweaver 8 supports PHP 5, but the really big story is the support for XSL Translations (XSLT) and improved support for XML. Now maybe I won’t be as frightened to use XML data sources for jobs that don’t require a database but do require some sort of formatted text data source. I could see this being used for pages that have templated content, or perhaps some sort of blog without a MySQL database driving it.

With Dreamweaver 8, it’s easier than ever to add Flash video to a Web site. All you have to do is direct the application to the file, select the kind of playback controls you want and you’re done. Of course, you’ll still need Flash or the Flash Video Encoder to put your video into the FLV format, but it sure is nice not having to write the code to integrate the video into a site.

One thing I found odd in Dreameaver, though: When adding an FLV to a Web page by selecting Import Flash Video, I couldn’t preview the video the way I can when I place a Flash movie. Macromedia says it will consider adding this feature in a future release; I hope they do.

File-Friendly Flash

One of the greatest things about Flash has always been great interactivity wrapped in a small file size. Now Macromedia is doing even more to keep the size of Flash files down by rendering advanced effects at runtime.

With the new addition of runtime effects such as drop shadows, glows and a Photoshop-like layer effects palette, Flash becomes more of a design tool and a tremendous asset to my workflow. In earlier versions, there were no efficient ways of achieving such effects— only tricky workarounds with bitmap images.

The addition of layer-blending effects like those of Photoshop (multiply, overlay and hard light, for example) is also a major plus. I use those features all the time in Photoshop, and until now, re-creating the effects in Flash was a problem. Now I have similar options built into Flash.

If there is one downside to the new Flash, it’s that taking advantage of features such as rendering effects at runtime will require end users to have the Flash 8 plug-in. Not everyone in every target audience is diligent about updating their plug-ins, so, until users upgrade to the latest versions, some of the benefits could be lost on them.

Included only in Flash Professional and not the stand-alone version of Flash is support for true alpha-channel transparency. Video effects artists and editors should be thrilled, because it means no more masking; it also means smaller file sizes because you won’t have to cheat by exporting 24-bit PNG files with transparency to achieve the effects. This alone makes purchasing Studio worthwhile. (The benefits of alpha-channel support, among other Flash features, are also discussed in the November 2005 issue of Studio/monthly, www.studiomonthly.com/5567.html.)

The "batch" function of the Flash Video Encoder significantly speeds up the export process. Also, much like Autodesk Cleaner or the Compressor component of Final Cut Pro, it allows me to create and use my own presets. I found that the Flash 8 video compressor, which is made by On2, did a finer job with our graphically intensive demo reel than did the Sorenson Spark codec used in the previous version of Flash. That said, both codecs have always yielded desirable results. On2’s codec seems to yield files with slightly smoother playback.

Future-proofed Production?

Studio 8 demonstrates clearly that Macromedia has an eye toward the future. First, it includes a mobile emulator that demonstrates what Flash content will look like when played on the Flash Lite Player for mobile devices. Many of the emulators I’ve seen supplied by mobile device manufacturers aren’t terribly good, and sometimes you can’t even get an emulator from a manufacturer unless it’s for a latest-and-greatest model. Macromedia’s list of templates for various mobile devices is not extensive, and there are still many devices that are not compliant with the Flash Lite player, but I’d imagine it won’t be long before that changes. If you do a lot of work that’s destined for a PDA or mobile phone, the emulator could be useful. Will it turn you into a professional mobile app developer? Probably not, but it can’t hurt.

Second, Flash presents the option of adding metadata to SWFs. In theory, it’s great, because my one longstanding hesitation about prescribing Flash for some clients has been that the files aren’t spidered. For a client who cares about search visibility, it’s a lost opportunity. The metadata feature may help you, but there’s a catch: I asked Macromedia whether search engines are already spidering the metadata, and the company said that Google, Yahoo! and MSN are planning to do so, but haven’t done it yet. So, while we won’t see immediate results from this development, it’s nice to know that the capability is there.

Go for It

Studio 8 is certainly worth the upgrade, but some of the features that make it worth the upgrade aren’t backward compatible with the Flash 7 plug-in. It’s going to take a while for the public to be able to take advantage of the content you can offer from this new software suite. It’s possible that the next major release of Windows or the Mac OS will help fuel this changeover, but there are still so many Windows users out there with browsers using Flash 5 and 6 plug-ins.

Of course there are the workflow and speed improvements in Studio 8 to tide you over. One thing is for sure: I’m excited to see what some creative folks out there will do with these new features, and that’s something I haven’t been able to say since the debut of Flash MX.

Specs

SMART ADVICE

• Use the Mobile Emulator to see what your Flash content will
• look like when played on a Flash Lite Player, the version of the player
• now found on many mobile devices.