Stand Alone Projector
MX 2004 lets you create both Mac and PC Projectors on the same machine. Previously you'd need two computers to do this.
You can add in multiple movies into your project. If you want, you can play them in order, or have scripts call the movies.
There are various properties about the movie that you project that you can set.
Use a Standalone option for maximum capatiblity. Shockwave is smaller, but the user needs the Shockwave engine to run.
You can burn a CD with both Mac and PC projector files and then use the appropriate auto run file to make the disc launch the Mac or PC version depending on the machine the CD is inserted to.

Target Machine:
Decide on the minimum specifications for the kind of PCs you think people will be running your software on.
Pentium  III ~800Mhz. Most people today will be able to handle that. If you have a very high en project, with lots of video and effects you may require over a Ghz.
800x600 resolution monitor (32 bit color)

For 3D products on a PC, your program might not work on all cards.  Macs all have a standard card .
Direct X, and Open GL, allow Shockwave to talk to the card by passing the information to the graphics library. The library tells the card what to do.

Hardware Tips:

• Processor: Higher speeds mean higher frame rates (generally), for smoother transitions and animation.
• RAM - More RAM allows for more cast members to be in memory longer. Otherwise they are erased and then loaded from disk when needed.
• Virtual Memory - pretents your system has more RAM by using the hard drive as storage.
• Disk Speed - Fasters disks get the data off of them after. Helps in Kiosks when media is streamed off the disk.
• CD-ROMs - video may play better (on older machines) if the video is copied to the drive before playing.
• Bus Speed - is the speed at which the parts of the computer talk to each other.
• Video Card - Better card gives better video.
• Sound Card - Better card gives clearer and richer audio.
• Speakers - This is how you hear the sounds from the card. Get a good pair of speakers to hear the sound clear and louder.

Software Tips:

• New Operating Systems are less prone to problems and work better with Director.
• Extensions - Add extra features to Director. But if you add too many to your project, the project will get very large.
• Drivers - Tell the computer how to communicate with hardware. Keep your drivers up to date, to get the latest features and bug fixes.
• Display Settings - Larger display resolution, more info, but smaller displays of less color depth give smoother video.
• Browsers - some older browsers do not let you load media links or Internet text. Take this into consideration when making your project. Also each browser may have bugs. Test your project on many different browsers (at least the popular ones).

Trimming movies for Web Sites:

• Streaming Movies - have the movie load a few frames (or even just 1) before it begins loading. To load more members that you will need later on, you can place them off screen to get them loaded at the begining.
• You can offer low and high quality versions of your movies (and then allow the user to select which they want to see).
  
• Images - smaller resolution, or color depth
  
• Sounds - less quality or more compression
  
• Video - less frame rate, image size, or color depth
• Remove unused cast members, to make your file smaller.

Mac & PC Cross Platform Issues:

• Import fonts that you'll use, to make sure the person running your program will have the font available to them.  But for text fields, you'll have a problem if you use fancy fonts. The Font Map is able to have you map fonts to another font. For example Arial on the PC as Helvetica on the Mac.
• Text Members can be used as Save As Bitmap in the Property Inspector in the Text tab.
• Macs have a very bright display compared to PCs.