flash (macromedia): When I import FLV into a flash file then publish to HTML, I have no problem
seeing the video (WITH skin controls) in a browser but only when opening the
html file directly (ie: double clicking html file in windows explorer). But
when I view the html through our file system http:/etc etc (running an apache
server) the video plays but there are no controls. I'm guessing something is
filtering the controls out for some reason? If so how do I get around this?
I've tried using the preset skins and also uploading skin to our server and
using an http path, doesn't help.

The bigger picture is that I want video to play in our web pages, without the
"click to activate" thing and also so our javascript navigation flyouts display
over top of the flash (not beneath). I can get all these things to work for
*normal* swf/html files but not flash video. It seems to be a completely
different beast... Thought I'd mention this too, as solving the skin problem is
just one obstacle on the way to solving this wider objective.

Have you also uploaded the player skin at the same location as the player
itself? flash creates a file in the location of the fla file with the chosen
location.

The "Click to activate" notification can be work around by using the flash
export profile (HTTP active content) when exporting the movie using the publsih
function. a js file will be automatically created in your fla location to
disable that nasty message ;)