BB FlashBack includes a number of options to let you adjust the file size and quality of your final Flash export.
Image Compression
There are two image compression options on the 'Compression' tab of the Flash export options window:
Lossless. Select this to export a perfect reproduction of what was recorded on screen, but at the expense of larger file sizes for some types of movie.
JPG. Use this to produce smaller export files than the lossless option, but with a degraded image quality. The Image Quality slider allows you to balance filesize and quality - the better the image quality, the larger the exported file.
In general, JPG gives better results for movies that contain photo type images or animations, and Lossless works best for movie that just contain normal Windows applications with few or no colourful images. Experiment and see what settings give the best result for your movie.
For some files, typically those that contain few or no photo type images, the size of the file can be reduced by limiting the number of colours in the exported movie.
How to change the colour depth of the exported movie:
Go to the 'More' tab in the Flash export options window.
Select a colour depth from the 'Colour depth' drop down list, export the movie and see whether this results in a reduced file size.
MX Compression
By default, BB FlashBack uses 'MX' compression to reduce the size of the exported Flash movie file. This can give a significant size reduction, but it means that PCs will need version 6 or newer of the Flash Player to uncompress and play the movie.
Macromedia give statistics on Player version 'ubiquity' on their website, and state that in September 2005, 94% of PCs in Asia and >96% of PCs in Europe, Canada and USA had version 6 or newer of the Flash Player installed.
If a movie is exported to Flash with MX compression turned on and the HTML file is opened on a PC that has a pre-v6 installation of the Flash Player, the movie will not be displayed.
Also, be aware that different browsers can have different versions of the Flash Player installed.
How to turn off MX compression:
Go to the 'Compression' tab in the Flash export options window.
Uncheck the 'MX Compression' box.
MP3 Compression
If your movie contains sound, the type of sound compression used may have a large effect on the exported file size. By default BB FlashBack uses MP3 compression to reduce the file size, but there are a number of quality settings you can select. As usual, the higher the quality, the larger the file.
How to set the MP3 compression level:
Go to the 'Audio' tab of the Flash export options window.
Make sure the 'MP3 compression' box is checked and select a quality setting from the 'Quality' drop down list.
Movie optimisation
BB FlashBack includes a function to 'optimise' movies. The size of a Flash export from an optimised movie can be smaller than an export from the unoptimised movie.
For more help, see Optimising movies.