SWF And FLV 10 Specs

The version 10 updates of both the SWF and FLV specs are available for your inspection:

• SWF spec
• FLV spec

Here are some of the things added, changed, or corrected:

• new DefineBitsJPEG4 tag (90), with deblocking filter
• new DefineFont4 tag (91)
• described how to embed Speex into SWF and FLV
• described how to embed XMP metadata in FLV
• new flags in the FileAttributes tag describe whether a SWF requires the new ‘gpu’ or ‘direct’ WMODEs (only useful when running a SWF in a standalone player where there is no encompassing HTML to specify WMODE)
• new flag in DefineShape4 describes whether the shape uses fill winding rule
• rearranged some chapters to (hopefully) make the SWF spec flow better
• revised DefineBitsJPEG2 and DefineBitsJPEG3 to mention how they can be used to store GIF and PNG data as well as JPEG (as can the new DefineBitsJPEG4 tag; yes, the tag names are a bit misleading, but they’re a bit too entrenched to be changed now)
• revised description of the Flash Screen Video v2 codec format
• in F4V, several signed values were incorrectly marked as unsigned
• fixed description of Flash ADPCM (initial predictors are signed, not unsigned; block size was off by 1)
• both documents now thoroughly describe which parameters (channels, bit resolution, sample rate) are fixed or flexible depending on the audio codec
• the FileAttributes tag came about in SWF 8 rather than SWF 1
• fixed the FileAttributes tag, which specifies a Metadata data structure — not a SymbolClass — with the hasMetadata flag
• in ButtonRecord and PlaceObject3, list the correct codes for the difference, add, and subtract blend modes
• PlaceObject3 tag description was missing a bitmap caching byte (should have been there since SWF 8 spec)
• in FillStyle, a GradientMatrix is also present for fill style 0×13
• SWF spec now uses “opacity” instead of “transparency” in many places in order to more accurately describe blending behavior
• clarified the maximum length of a SWF file
• fixed several examples
• fixed numerous inconsistencies in the Actions chapter

Thanks to Michael, Baptiste, both Benjamins, Bobby, Amol, Cody, Matthew, Romi, and anyone else I might have missed who also offered corrections and suggestions for improvements.