FLV output gives blank white screen inside the player

[Denver Dave]

I can't seem to get the FLV output to work. The SWF works, but the FLV option acts like it is encoding with a 2 pass, takes time to produce, but always ends up with a blank white screen within the player and a 1 kb .flv file when I expect several megabytes.

I do not have Macromedia Flash installed, and someplace I thought that I saw that I needed this for the .flv to work, but can't find the reference again and no error messages were produced.

I'm using the trial version - any suggestions.
Thanks

[Tim McDonnell]

Check you production settings specifically Flash Options; if it's not a Flash issue, there may be some values that just don't product a playable image. These are my settings, pretty much defaults:

Production Wizard - Flash Options
FLV selected Target Flash Version: 8

FLV Frame Rate: Automatic Video Codec: VP6
Max Bitrate:300 Key Frame Rate: 5
Bitrate Control: Variable 1-Pass
Video Quality: 80%

[Denver Dave]

Hi Tim

Thank you very much for your reply. It really helps to know if something is supposed to work as we expect it. I still get the blank white player when producing with your suggested settings. I think the key is that the encoding appears to be happening and takes a reasonable amount of time, but the flv file that is created is extremely small at only 1 kb - expect a MB or 2.

At this point, now that I know it is supposed to work, I'll put in a support request. I have installed quite a few Flash editor / encoder applications and I think all have created .flv files (however the filesize / quality is an issue with some). Maybe something previously installed is interfering with my creating a reasonably sized and functioning .flv file.

I have a 2nd PC that I can install the trial on, if I must, that has not had all the other products installed, but would be nice to run on my PC, because I assume I'll have the same issue with the paid version (... hmm sounding like I've already bought.)

[Denver Dave]

Response from Mike Spink from Techsmith support:Dave,

We have found this to be a direct result of a 3rd party filter from the K-Lite Media codec Pack. You wouldn't happen to have that installed would you? If so, would it be possible to remove it?

Please let me know.

MikeA third-party codec could very well be the problem. I certainly would not have installed a codec by itself, however, I do have trial versions of the major swf / flv editor / encoders installed. One of them may be the culprit.

I'll post this is the forum in the hopes we can narrow this down to the offender and determine a way to correct the problem. Sounds like support has seen this before, maybe others have the issue and we can work together to find a solution.

I'll uninstall all other 3rd-party swf / flv applications and see if that solves the issue and report back - .... hmmmm, maybe uninstall one at at time.

Unrelated to Camtasia -
Codec problems can be very hard to correct and sometimes unistalling the application does not always solve the issue created. For example, some people have lost the ability to hear website embedded mono sound like the www.CNN.com videos after "upgrading" to Windows Media Player 11. Unistalling wmp 11 did not solved the problem. If you have windows wmp 11, your mono sound results would be helpful here:
http://forums.techguy.org/multimedia/541727-no-mono-sound-windows-media.html

Meanwhile, back to Camtasia and non functional FLV files, hopefully if this is a codec problem, it will be less tenacious than the above - I'll report back after uninstalling other Flash creating software. If anyone has any other suggestions - please reply - love software forums - gives some hope.

Thank you.