flash (macromedia): We have been trying to synchronise various events in the background to a sound
track, unfortunately without success.

The elements are
first of all the sound line,
a looping banner (programmed with AS2)
and various alpha tweens which are loaded as SWFs.

Our problem is that certain points in the music and the SWFs as well as the
position of the banner should match reliably when playing, which they don't do
so far when publishing the movie. There are always variations and significant
fluctuations between the happening points of the different elements. Can
anybody help?

Hoping for answers

Parlian

How are you bringing the sound into Flash? One method might be, in this
particular instance, to embed the sound on the timeline.

Just wondering, why are you loading 'alpha tweens' as separate elements?

The sound is part of the root timeline - just entered in a keyframe and playing
along the timeline. The tweens are loaded as external swf files, as the layer
of the banner swf which is coded in AS2 overwrites the tweens, but these should
actually be on top of the banner. Any solution for this is also welcome and
thank you for your response, cbeech.

Parlian

I think I would consider putting the loaded Tweens into the original file, the
loading is probably what's causing the lag. You may also want to consider a
small preloader, that checks to make sure everythings loaded up and ready
before intiating the play of the moive.

It shouldn't be to difficult to place the Tweens on the timeline, if you have
a couple of different 'effects' that you're going for, you can simply use an
array or counter to control the play and visibility of each instance on each
movie loop.

".....consider a small preloader, that checks to make sure everythings loaded
up and ready before intiating the play of the moive."....
".....you can simply use an array or counter to control the play and
visibility of each instance on each movie loop"

Thank you for the above. Theoretically I comprehend your advice as a
potential solution. However, being fairly new in this field, "simply" is still
beyond my horizon and I would be grateful for some advice on how to implement
your suggestions.

Parlian

sure, you're welcome. Can you tell me what the swf alpha Tweens are doing,
what is their purpose? Obvisously, it's a fade effect of some type, but I
believe these could be accomplished without loading them, or even just with a
code line or two.

I think the first step is to determine if the loading of these elements is
indeed the problem, can you comment out the code(s) that is loading them, and
run the movie successfully?

Also, would it be possible for you to post the files, so I can take a look.

Hello again

My apologies, I was on another mission for the last weeks.

Back to Flash. For now I was able to synchronise the tweens and a text banner
loop moving from left to right the right side of the screen, with the music, by
streaming the audio file. However, as the framerate seems to have to adjust to
the streaming speed of the audio, the text movement (white before black
background) makes it visible that the framerate of the tweens is held back at
times for synchronising. It works fine with the pictures, but not with the
text. I also tried to bring the text in as a gif banner, but the look of this
was also not acceptable.

Thank you for your offer to post the files but this is unfortunately not an
option, as the art work etc. is not mine.

I am really sorry for not having responded earlier

Parlian