Flash Player 10 not working in some sites, working fine in others

Question

Lately I've been having problems viewing videos with Flash Player on many sites in which they viewed fine previously. What I see is a solid black rectangle the size of the video screen. No Player controls. Nothing. I have looked at the page code, but found nothing out of the ordinary. The system on this machine is XP Pro with SPII, and the problem occurs whether using IE 8 or Firefox 3.6.3. The "about" display showed that I had Falsh Player 10.0.32.18 installed on my system, so I downloaded 10.0.45.2 and installed it, hoping that would resolve the problem. Nope.
Presently, going to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ via either IE of Firefox shows that I have version 10.0.45.2 properly installed. The animation plays fine in both browsers.
Today a friend of mine graduated from Temple University in Japan, The graduation cerimony was streamed live (3:30 in the morning my time). I could not watch it. That site was http://www.tuj.ac.jp/graduation2010/video.html The hosting site is UStream, specifically http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tuj-2010-graduation I cannot get any videos on UStream to open. All I see is a black rectangle. My friend's mother had no problem wathing the cerimony with Firefox on her laptop.
Other sites that worked fine recently but no longer ply videos at all on this system are Fox News and NBC News. I have no problem watching Al Jazeera news videos, but their videos post on UTube. I have no problem watching videos on UTube. BBC news videos also run fine, as do videos from many other sites. It makes no difference if I accept or block cookies on the sites that cnnot play the videos. What is different about these sites than the others?
I have read two related threads here, Problem  with sites not loading Flash... and Flash  videos not working on espn.com in any browser , but neither of them had any relevant help to my problem. Re: Flash videos not working on espn.com in any browser Re: Player won't startThe second thread concerned a problem loading videos from ESPN, giving the site
http://espn.go.com/video/category?id=3461971 as an example. but I have no problem watching videos on that site or any other videos on ESPN. Instructions given in the first thread said to delete several files from the C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash folder, but I had none of the files lilsted.
Is there somthing in my Registry that needs to be tweaked? Is there someting that my antivirus program (Bitstream) may have whacked? I really would like to fix this problem.
Thanks — Tony

Answer 1

you seem to want to do everything
you can to work around BitDefender
I gave you my BitDefender work-around to help you in dealing with others who have a conflict with Flash Player and BitDefender, not because I was trying to make Flash Player conform to BitDefender. When I first wrote in yesterday I did not know BitDefender was the problem. You've indicated that may well be the case. I'm trying to work with BitDefender to fix their program before their next release, and they are trying to work with me. If BitDefender breaks Flash Player, than it should be in Adobe's interest to get BitDefender to stop breaking Flash Player, as well as Microsoft's and Mozilla's if BitDefender breaks their browsers. I'm just caught in the middle.
The last thing you asked was for me to go to the Flash test sight. You said, "If you don't have the SWF plug-in, this test should tell you." I replied that all I could assertain from the site was that I had version 10.0.45.2 installed — no mention of the SWF plug-in. Did that mean I had the SWF plug-in installed? I don't know.
You asked —
If you have the Anti-Virus
component of Ad-Aware disabled, then why even have it Installedt
I found Ad-Aware to be an excellent spy-ware blocker. That's what I bought it for back before they added in there own antivirus program. Upgrading to the latest version of Ad-Aware included the antivirus program, whether I wanted it or not. I didn't, so I ticked the check-box to disable it. It seems what were once good programs by themselves now try to be all-encompassing, jack-of-all-trades suites.
I liked Norton antivirus when Peter Norton was the creative force behind the program, but later iterations created havoc with my systems, so I looked for a replacement antivirus program. BitDefender had a far superior antivirus program to most others on the market when I first bought it. All I wanted in upgrading to its latest version was an improved  antivirus engine, but like Ad-Aware, it has now tried to add in too many features, such as the browser toolbars. I have uninstalled BitDefender several times. The problems it created remained, leaving holes in my Registry where there once were entries, blocking Photoshop's licensing files. You indicated you had worked with other's who had conflicts with Flash Player and BitDefender.
I'll get that info on BitDefender,
while you are checking on some of these items.
That would have been great — really the help I would have used.
At the end of your previous e-mail you said —
You have several issues that need
addressed, so we'll take one at a time.
We never even got to the first one. The next thing you said was —
It appears you discount anything I
suggest or fail to give it a try.
I don't know what I discounted that you suggested. I thoguht I was doing  everything you asked. I do appreciate your taking the time to work with me on a Sunday.
Tony