Synchronously play videos from arrays using actionscript 3 - arrays

Question

I am developing an AIR application using Actionscript 3.0. The application loads two native windows on two separate monitors. Monitor 1 will play a video, and monitor 2 will synchronously play an overlayed version of the same video (i.e. infrared). Presently, I am hung up with figuring out the best way to load the videos. I'm thinking about using arrays, but am wondering, if I do, how can I link arrays so to link a primary scene to its secondary overlay videos.
Here is my code so far. The first part of it creates the 2 native full-screen windows, and then you'll see where I started coding the arrays at the bottom:
package
{
import flash.display.NativeWindow;
import flash.display.NativeWindowInitOptions;
import flash.display.NativeWindowSystemChrome;
import flash.display.Screen;
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.StageAlign;
import flash.display.StageDisplayState;
import flash.display.StageScaleMode;
public class InTheAirNet_MultiviewPlayer extends Sprite {
public var secondWindow:NativeWindow;
public function InTheAirNet_MultiviewPlayer() {
// Ouput screen sizes and positions (for debugging)
for each (var s:Screen in Screen.screens) trace(s.bounds);
// Make primary (default) window's stage go fullscreen
stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN_INTERACTIVE;
stage.color = 0xC02A2A; // red
// Create fullscreen window on second monitor (check if available first)
if (Screen.screens[1]) {
// Second window
var nwio:NativeWindowInitOptions = new NativeWindowInitOptions();
nwio.systemChrome = NativeWindowSystemChrome.NONE;
secondWindow = new NativeWindow(nwio);
secondWindow.bounds = (Screen.screens[1] as Screen).bounds;
secondWindow.activate();
// Second window's stage
secondWindow.stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
secondWindow.stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
secondWindow.stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN_INTERACTIVE;
secondWindow.stage.color = 0x387D19; // green
}
//Create array of PRIMARY scenes
var primary:Array = ["scene1.f4v", "scene2.f4v"];
//Create array of SECONDARY scenes for scene1
var secondary1:Array = ["scene1A.f4v", "scene1B.f4v"];
//Create array of SECONDARY scenes for scene2
var secondary2:Array = ["scene2A.f4v", "scene2B.f4v"];
}
}
}
EDIT: Users will cycle through overlays using LEFT and RIGHT on the keyboard, and will cycle through the scenes using UP and DOWN.

Answer 1

Use a generic Object for each video, store each in an array, and then store the secondary videos in an array within each object:
var videos:Array = [
{
primary:'video1.mp4',
secondary:[
'overlay101.mp4',
'overlay102.mp4'
]
},
{
primary:'video2.mp4',
secondary:[
'overlay201.mp4',
'overlay202.mp4'
]
}
{
primary:'video3.mp4',
secondary:[
'overlay301.mp4',
'overlay302.mp4'
]
}
]
Then when you to play a video, you can loop through the videos array. Each object has a primary video and its associated secondary videos. You could take it a step further, as well, and use the object to store metadata or store more Objects within the secondary array, rather than strings.
EDIT: Quick response to the first comment
In Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) languages, everything is an object. Every single class, every single function, every single loop, every single variable is an object. Classes generally extend a base class, which is called Object in AS3.
The Object is the most basic, most primitive type of object available — it is simply a list of name:value pairs, sometimes referred to as a dictionary. So you can do the following:
var obj:Object = {hello:'world'};
trace(obj.hello); // output 'world'
trace(obj['hello']); // output 'world'
trace(obj.hasOwnProperty('hello')); //output true (obj has a property named 'hello')
What I did was create one of these objects for each video and then save them to an array. So say you wanted to trace out primary and find out how many videos were in secondary, you would do this:
for (var i:int = 0; i < videos.length; i++) {
var obj:Object = videos[i];
trace('Primary: ' + obj.primary); // for video 1, output 'video1.mp4'
trace('Secondary Length: ' + obj.secondary.length); // for video1, output 2
}
That should show you how to access the values. An dictionary/Object is the correct way to associate data and the structure I supplied is very simple, but exactly what you need.
What we're talking about is the most basic fundamentals of OOP programming (which is what AS3 is) and using dot-syntax, used by many languages (everything from AS3 to JS to Java to C++ to Python) as a way of accessing objects stored within other objects. You really need to read up on the basics of OOP before moving forward. You seem to be missing the fundamentals, which is key to writing any application.

Answer 2

I can't perfectly understand what you're trying to do, but have you thought about trying a for each loop? It would look something like...
prim1();
function prim1():void
{
for each (var vid:Video in primary)
{
//code to play the primary video here
}
for each (var vid:Video in secondary1)
{
//code to play the secondary video here
}
}
Sorry if it's not what you wanted, but what I understood from the question is that you're trying to play the both primary and secondary videos at the same time so that they're in synch. Good luck with your program ^^