reviewed by: Jen deHaan

Version: Flash MX

Flash MX: Design for TV and Video is an original title brought to you by Wiley. This book is an original title that does not have much competition out there. I was very happy to see such a book on the market. Broadcast Flash is not covered in many online tutorials, or many other books out there. Competition is slim, which means this is definitely a book to take a look at. This book does fill the gap quite nicely, as it does a very throrough job of communicating the subject in an engaging and in-depth manner.

The topic of Flash video crops up constantly. With the addtion of video to Flash MX cropped up an entirely new "subject" for Flash designers and developers to learn about. Not that video hasn't been mimiced in earlier versions of Flash (thanks to Flix and Turbine, or just manual bitmap series), but now with the import features and Spark, video is much easier and brought to the "masses" of Flash users. However, taking Flash to the TV screen, DVD and the like is also a very technical area. Cosiderations about color, size, television display, scripted animation and export to video, compression and all sorts of other issues is introduced. These technical concerns are covered in great detail within this book. Animation techniques are also spoken about at detail, which I found incredibly useful after reading so many ActionScript and code related books!

You will also find contributions by leading Flash designers in this book. Many of the chapters had the assistance of leading Broadcast Flash and animation experts such as Sandy Debreuil and the lads from Atomic Cartoons. The art and insight from these experts (coupled by that of the authors) makes this book quite the resource.

It is very interesting to see the use of interviews within the chapters, typically by the contributing experts mentioned above. I found this was executed with much success, as it provided a lot of insight into some of the leading Flash designers work process. These sections are very enjoyable to read, and add an engaging quality to the book that is not found in many others.

Flash MX: Design for TV and Video details the integration of leading video software packages with Flash, which is not a heavily covered topic anywhere else. You will learn how to work with other software packages such as Toon Boom and After Effects, and some of the finer points about video. It is noted however, that there are a few technical glitches in some of the more advanced video subjects. I also noted some images/screencaptures within the book of sketchy quality (obviously enlarged too much for their original size or stretched), which is always quite distracting. These are a very minor issues though in an otherwise very high quality book.

Flash MX: Design for TV and Video is a full-color book, which is tremendous considering the subject at hand. This does add some weight into the price-tag. However, I have seen black and white titles of the same length by other publishers at the same price (or more!) than this book. That said, it is definitely worth checking out.

I give this book an enthusiastic (5/5).

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