Matthew Richmond of The Chopping Block has just posted a very useful article on the “Chromeless Player” that shows your .flv-format videos at your own site or on YouTube. The player was written in ActionScript 2, but nowadays is asked to perform in an ActionScript 3 environment. AS2 and AS3 are not compatible on a code level. The workaround: they pass information to each other via JavaScript.

Matthew’s article describes the process, gives you do-it-yourself instructions, pastable code, and access to necessary source files.

The basic idea is essentially the same as that used in swfObject, the snippet of js/html code that is now the standard for inserting Flash .swf files into standard HTML web pages. Conveniently enough, the creator of swfObject, Geoff Stearns, now runs YouTube development for Google. Even less coincidentally, he used to work with Matthew Richmond at The Chopping Block. It is a very small world.