Why do I need Flash Media Server

Hello
My company produces advergames. We have just made a football
quiz that streams all questions and video content (quite small
content). The quiz will be on thousands of websites and will
probably get over 4 million users within a month.
Do I need Flash Streaming Media servcie to help me with this
and can anyone give me any ideas to the problems that may arise
from streming that much media?
Many thanks
Matmijeff

You need a streaming server to do it. FMS is (IMO) the best
choice, but there are two others I know of
Red5 (
http://osflash.org/red5) . Red5
is an open source, free (as in beer), java based flash media
server. It's still in beta, but I hear it's shaping up to be a
pretty solid server.
Wowza Media Server (
http://www.wowzamedia.com)
also has a java based flash server in beta, and the beta program is
open to the public. The projected prices (on their site) put the
price at about half that of FMS.
Just curious, how many people do you need to serve at once?
If it's 10 or less, you can use the free FMS developer
license.

Similar Messages

Do I need Flash Media Server?

Hi all,
Sorry for this question, but I'm a bit confused. Is there a
way to broadcast live flash video using just flash, or do I NEED
Flash Media server. I don't really have the budget for it, and
don't really know another option if Flash doesn't work.
Thanks

You need a streaming server to do it. FMS is (IMO) the best
choice, but there are two others I know of
Red5 (
http://osflash.org/red5) . Red5
is an open source, free (as in beer), java based flash media
server. It's still in beta, but I hear it's shaping up to be a
pretty solid server.
Wowza Media Server (
http://www.wowzamedia.com)
also has a java based flash server in beta, and the beta program is
open to the public. The projected prices (on their site) put the
price at about half that of FMS.
Just curious, how many people do you need to serve at once?
If it's 10 or less, you can use the free FMS developer
license.

LCCS functionality with flash media server 4

Hi,
I'm now using the LCCS account in my application to create p2p audio/video connections and screen sharing. Audio/video streaming is working well. However screen sharing uses RTMP protocol which means that all the data goes through the server. Due to network speed (and big distance from user1 -> LCCS server -> user2) screen sharing isn't very enjoyable and efficient because of delays. Now I wonder how to implement my own Flash Server, that users can authenticate to, publish p2p streams, and share their screens via my private server. I Assume that I need Flash Media Server 4 Enterprise (Am I wrong? Maybe some lower version applies), but what next. I completely don't know how to bite it. How to implement connecting/authenticating/routing/making connections to my own server?
Best Regards
Peter.

Check out below links:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flashmediaserver/techoverview/WS02f7d8d4857b16772f462f081294b9 46df9-8000.html#WS3f305989b15d10dc56a9904212a5dec9b49-8000
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flashmediaserver/devguide/WSa4cb07693d123884520b86f312a354ba36 d-8000.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/net/NetGroup.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flashmediaserver/configadmin/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d119f2925 e64-7fd2.html#WSf6b44f6ae3478e7f-67b40a2012a82c512f1-7fff
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flashmediaserver/configadmin/WSf888d222081ca19c-641751a912a847 7639a-8000.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/p2p_rtmfp_groups.html
Hope above links help - let me know

JMF or flash media server? Why JMF

Hi all,
I was studing about jmf since 2 months in order to make a live video and audio broadcast. But recently I found out about flash media server.
It seems that is verygood for those kind of web applications.
I am so confused about which one I shoud use. I have no idea about FMS.
There are some I want to learn.
Whe we develop an JMF application how all clients of this web site use JMF? For developing purposes I setup JMF.
Do all the clients have to install JMF in order to use my site or others which done using JMF?
After all, probably everyone has a flash installed and no problem if a site developed by flash.
Can you enlight me please?
and I have no Idea about NAT, PROXY for developing RTP live video web application.

regerybets wrote:
..Whe we develop an JMF application how all clients of this web site use JMF? .. The first thing you need to understand is that JMF is effectively an abandoned API. It works fine for some older formats of media, but does not support the later (more compressive) formats.
I am guessing by 'in web site' you mean you want the media embedded in a web page (and by the way - yuck!). That means using applets.
1) Embedded applets cannot use natives unless the end user has either
a) Also installed JMF, which is usually impractical for the purposes of just 'showing some media in a web page', or
b) The applet is using a plugin-2 JRE and hooks into the JNLP API to install the natives.
2) If the cross-platform version of JMF is used, you just need to add the JMF Jars to the archive attribute of the applet element. The x-plat version of JMF supports (even) less formats than the one using natives, but at least it should also work on the Mac.
..For developing purposes I setup JMF.
Do all the clients have to install JMF in order to use my site or others which done using JMF?Yes. In one form or another, as detailed above.
After all, probably everyone has a flash installed and no problem if a site developed by flash.That is a rash assumption for either Flash or Java. I did not have Flash installed for a long time since I could not spare the bandwidth to be watching media in web pages. I only installed it recently when a friend convinced me to upload some of [my time-lapse animations|http://www.youtube.com/user/DrewTubeish] (3) to YouTube.
There are other reasons people either do not have, cannot install, or refuse to install, either plug-in. The best you can do for them, is to give them accurate and easy to understand information on why the page failed. Both Flash and Java have ways to do that - usually with the help of JacvaScript.
3) Shameless plug. ;)

Is Flash Media Server the software I need?

Hello!
A client needs a Flash streaming software to best serve the following:
750 Mb/s Internet bandwidth
Average 7 minutes video length
Average 1,100 video requests
3,500 video requests at peak hours
99,9% SLA
Will Flash Media Server do the job or will I need something else?
Thank you very much for any ideas.

> 750 Mb/s Internet bandwidth
Sure, FMS can handle 750Mbps of throughput
> Average 7 minutes video length
Not an issue. It doesn't matter how long the videos are (although on a 32 bit OS, the file size has a limit of 2GB)
Average 1,100 video requests
Assuming the server has adequate hardware and network resources, 1100 concurrent streams is realistic.
>3,500 video requests at peak hours
A single FMS won't handle that many concurrent streams. You'd need to distribute the load across at least two servers for that capacity.
>99,9% SLA
There is no SLA associated with the software. That's something your hosting provider would be responsible for, and it wouldn't apply to FMS... just to the server FMS is running on.

Why Flash Media Server

Hi All,
As it stands currently, I'm developing online teaching applications that faculty can use in their classes, as well as encoding and uploading videos to our Windows Servers. For database management, I'm coding server side scripts in PHP, and dumping everything into MySQL. Then embedding all the content into Moodle (which is hosted by a 3rd party).
I'm looking at a Flash Server Solution for a couple of reasons:
1) Delivering Streaming video instead of Progressive Download
2) Allowing instructors to encode and upload their own videos (similar to YouTube) without having to go through my office
3) Providing extra copyright security - in order to use some copyright videos, we have to ensure that only the students who are enrolled in specific classes can access the data. As it stands now, a smart student with the right URL can download anything we have up on our Windows servers.
Some Questions and concerns:
1) I don't know Cold Fusion. Will I have to rewrite all my scripts for that? Can Flash Media Server run PHP?
2) This is probably a really stupid one, but... Is Flash Server it's own platform, or does it have to run on a Windows or Linux box?
3) Does it need its own dedicated machine? Can you run a virtual server with Flash Server?
4) Which of the different flavors of Flash Server are best?
5) What kind of hardware specs are we looking at? We have 20,000 students and maybe a few thousand at any one time would have to access
Sorry about all the dumb questions. I'm mostly an app developer, but am in the position of having to make this decision, and then defend the decision if I decide to puruse a Flash server solution.
Thanks for your help.

Hi riquigley,
Following are quick answers on a few of your questions. Hopefully other folks will add their thoughts and also answer the questions I have skipped over.
4) Which of the different flavors of Flash Server are best?
-- FOR STRAIGHT VIDEO STREAMING USE Flash Media Streaming Server. THE PRICE POINT IS LOWER THAN Flash Media Interactive Server (aka FMIS. FMIS IS ONLY NEEDED FOR INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS, E.G. MULTIUSER, CHAT, ETC.)
-- COMPARE EDITIONS PAGE HERE:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/compare/
2) ... does it have to run on a Windows or Linux box?
-- YES. FMS IS A SERVICE THAT RUNS ON AN OS. WINDOWS AND RED HAT LINUX ARE SUPPORT. FULL REQUIREMENTS HERE:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediastreaming/systemreqs/
3) Does it need its own dedicated machine? Can you run a virtual server with Flash Server?
-- DEDICATED MACHINE *NOT* REQUIRED.
-- HOSTED SOLUTIONS ARE AVAILABLE TOO. HOSTED SOLUTIONS MAY OFFER: A) BETTER QUALITY; B) LOWER TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP; C) QUICKER START TO LAUNCH.
-- SEE LIST OF HOSTING PARTNERS, AKA CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) HERE:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/fvss/
1) I don't know Cold Fusion. Will I have to rewrite all my scripts for that? Can Flash Media Server run PHP?
-- COLDFUSION NOT REQUIRED. EITHER PHP OR COLDFUSION CAN BE USED TO MANAGE METADATA (INCLUDING SQL DATABASE INTERACTION).
-- PHP AND COLDFUSION HANDLE ALL HTTP REQUESTS AND RETURN DYNAMICALLY GENERATED PAGES TO THE USERS' BROWSERS.
-- FLASH MEDIA SERVER HANDLES ALL RTMP REQUESTS. DYNAMICALLY GENERATED PAGES FROM PHP WILL INCLUDE THE RTMP URLs THAT THE FLASH/FLEX SWFs USE IN THE BROWSER TO REQUEST THE RTMP STREAMS FROM THE FLASH MEDIA SERVERS.
hth,
g

Need help with Flash media server

I am using XAMPP. Now i want to intall Flash media server. How can i configure my apache server to work with flash media server? I dont want to install the apache server coming along with flash media

Hi,
What excactly is the usecase you are trying here? Are using your external Apache to proxy your http traffic from FMS to it or do you want to use http streaming feature of FMS?
If you want to proxy it then use the following document : http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashMediaServer/3.5_AdminGuide/WSE2A5A7B9-E118-496f-92F9-E295 038DB7DB.html
Refer Configure HTTP proxying topic in the document.

Questions before I buy Flash Media Server 2

Hi! I'm considering buying Macromedia Flash Media Server 2.
This software would be a large investment for me, so I'd really
appreciate any answers or advice that anyone could provide. I just
have a couple questions:
1) Can FMS2 be installed on the same server that runs my Web
sites? I have a Linux server that runs a few sites, and it would be
ideal to run this software and the sites on the same server. I'm
also wondering what port it would run on? I've used RealNetworks'
Helix Server, which requires you to run it on a separate server
because of port issues. I want to use Flash instead.
2) Does this software also come with a Flash video player
that would work with my sites? I want to be able to stream .flv
videos from my Web sites and have a Flash player launch whenever a
user selects one of my videos (kind of like how RealPlayer launches
when you click a RM file). This way, the player wouldn't always be
embedded in the page. Is that possible? I'm worried about the
player failing to launch, or people needing to download a special
player to view my videos.
Thanks very much!

1) Yes you can run it on the same box as your web server. You
can specify any port you wish for FMS to listen on (default is
1935)
2) I'm not quite sure I understand. In order to view your
videos a client will have to have a flash browser plugin installed
- which should not be a problem as flash browser penetration is
somewhere in the high 90th percentile (if Adobe is to believed). In
addition, your flash application will need to make a connection to
FMS before it can stream videos, so its not quite as simple as
clicking on a .flv link. Your flash app will have to be embedded in
a page (think youtube - although youtube does not use FMS).
If you're not sure if FMS is right for you (and you sound
like you're not sure), why don't you download the Developer edition
and test it out? Its free and has all the features of the "full"
version, but only gives you a license for 10 users.

Should I choose Flash Media Server?

Hi,
I'm trying to decide if I should purchase flash media server
for my streaming needs. I like working with flash, so that's why
I'm considering the flash media server.
Here is my streaming server "wishlist":
-variable playback speeds(fastforward, skip, rewind, restart,
etc)
-option of downloading entire video to local machine
-support for multiple file types or conversion/encoding
multiple file times
-security options to lock down source files
-a flexible platform to build custom players
-hook up to a database(mysql, mssql)
I looked through the flash media server specs on the Adobe
website, but they really don't get into specifics.
Thanks

Hi,
I'm trying to decide if I should purchase flash media server
for my streaming needs. I like working with flash, so that's why
I'm considering the flash media server.
Here is my streaming server "wishlist":
-variable playback speeds(fastforward, skip, rewind, restart,
etc)
-option of downloading entire video to local machine
-support for multiple file types or conversion/encoding
multiple file times
-security options to lock down source files
-a flexible platform to build custom players
-hook up to a database(mysql, mssql)
I looked through the flash media server specs on the Adobe
website, but they really don't get into specifics.
Thanks

How to get list of logged-in users from Flash Media Server in a Flash programm? (Or login/logout notifications)

Hi there,
I'm Very sorry for asking this. I guess it's a very basic problem, but I'm very new to Flash and Flash media Server and I need a very fast answer...
Currently I'm working on a Director project using a flash program which connects to Flash Media Server (I guess version 3, it's quite old). Unfortunately they forgot to make a flash method to send the actual userlist (or a notification when someone logged in or out) to Director. AND, unfortunately, they lost the source code of that flash programm, so I cannot look into it or alter it *sigh*.
Now I want to do a new flash programm which covers the old one, letting all known methods "pass trough" and building an additional method to gain the user list (or login/out notification).
How do I get the login information from Flash Media Server? (Would be good if you could provide an idea already for flash code... as I said I'm a tard at flash till now)
Thank you so much. And I hope you understand my situation asking here...
Jana

hparmar : yes, that's what I feared... I hoped it would be possible to tell the server from which application I do need the login information. What a mess.
Dimo Hristov: thanks for your offer! I already tried decompiling the flash program with the shareware version of Trillix Decompiler. It only decompiled the UI (in a terrible way) but no source code at all. It was the shareware version where I can decompile 2 or 3 programms to test the software. Are you sure the non-free version of Trilix Flash Decompiler will do..?

Windows Vista and Flash Media Server Streaming Problems

My company recently started using Flash Media Server to
stream audio and video content.
My boss just installed Windows Vista Ultimate and now no
streaming content will play at all. Simple Flash animations work,
but nothing that accesses the Flash Media Server for content. I've
uninstalled and reinstalled multiple versions of the Flash Player
on his machine but nothing seems to work. I also tried the new
"Reset" feature in IE that is supposed to return it to it's
shipping state and that didn't work. I navigated to the "System 32"
folder and ran the Flash Updater EXE. I downloaded and installed
all of the available updates through "Windows Update".
I also tested Flash Objects that stream video on Adobe.com
and they don't play either. Has anyone heard of this happening or
know what I need to do to fix it? I don't know if this is a bug in
the Flash Player or with Windows Vista.

This appears to be the solution:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=44&catid=184&threadid =1243464&enterthread=y

Beginners guide to integrating Flash Media Server 2?

I'm a newbit to Flasha dn flash media server and need some
help with integrating the two products. We've just purchased Flash
Media Server 2 to stream user created videos to a website. Idealy
we would like to use the FlvPlayBack component placed on the stage
to display the FLV file from the media server, but cannont get the
component to access the FLV file.
Media Server Configuration:
On the Media Server we created an application (testapp) with
an default instance (_definst_). The directory path for the
Appliation looks like this W:\MediaApps\testapp\streams\_definst_\
The name of the server is MediaServer
The application and instance are appearing in the Media
Server Admin manager.
I've placed an FLV file (Movie.flv) In the _devinst_
directory.
Flash FLA file
Placed FLVPlayback component on the stage
Set contentpath= rtmp:\\MediaServer\testapp\_definst_\Movie
Set islive=true
When I test publish the file, the video does not display?
Does anyone have any guidance on what I need to do? There
seems to be a lack of documentation on integrating the media
server. I looked a sample app called "SimplePB" that works, but
does not use the FLVPlayback component.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
John Wallwork

John,
For an FLV to stream from FMS, it must be placed in the
streams/_definst_ directory...
applications/myApplication/streams/_definst_/myFlv.flv
Then you would type in the rtmp connection information in the
contentPath of the FLVPlayback component like this
rtmp://myRTMPConnectionInfo/myApplication/myFlv
without the flv extension.
The documentation comes from the FMS components when you
install them.
Here it is...
To set up your FCS for streaming FLV files:
Create a folder in your FCS application folder, and give it a
name such as my_application.
Copy the main.asc file into the my_application folder.
Create a folder named streams in the my_application folder.
Create a folder named _definst_ inside the streams folder.
Place your FLV files in the _definst_ folder.
To access your FLV files on the Flash Communication Server,
use a URL such as rtmp://my_servername/my_application/stream.flv.
For more information on administering the Flash Communication
Server, including how to set up a live stream, see the FCS
documentation at
www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashcom/. When playing
a live stream with FCS, you need to set the FLVPlayback property
isLive to true. For more information, see FLVPlayback.isLive.
Regards,
Bill

Audio not streaming correctly from Flash Media Server

Our company has a Flex application (3.0.2) that is having a problem with audio dropping out in Windows 7. The problem appears worse with a wireless connection, but it can’t be consistently reproduced there, either. The only thing known for sure is that the problem has not been seen on any other version of Windows.
The application thinks the audio is playing, because it is calling the appropriate event listeners triggered when the audio completes and when any audio cue points are hit. The majority of our audio is streaming via Flash Media Server (3,0,2,201), but the problem was also seen using embedded sound effects. In one instance, several clicks of a button triggered an error saying the sound effect could not be loaded, and then about a minute later, all the sound effects played at once and the user could then continue with the application.
The problem has been repeated in IE 8, Firefox 3 and Chrome.

Thanks for your details. But i need more info.
Server:
FMS      3.0.2 ?
FMS installed in which platform Linux/windows? more details about it.
Client:
IE          7
Flash Player version     ?
WIndows 7
Wireless connection - Was the client placed in poor bandwidth.
Can you get the NetStream status info when u play the audio file.? We can check for the rebuffering happening at the client side.
Can you run your audio file through flvCheck Tool to check if the media file is in good form. It is available at "\$Root|Flash Media Server\tools\flvcheck.exe"
Now our intention should be to check the same media file with simpler application (since your production app is complicated) to ensure that the media streaming over 'client to server' is working fine.
Regards,
Janaki L

A User Count in a Flash Media Server Application

hello guys, first of all, sorry for my english...
i am making a flash media server application and i want users to see that how many users are currently connected to this application...
i have searched on google for 2 days and i couldnt find a good tutorial for AS3.
i have looked at fmsguru and some other tutorial websites but those wasn't enough for me to succes...
what i am trying to make is; a text area or dynamic text (i dont know which is most suitable for this purpose) which shows the numbers of connected user and i want it change immediately when a user connects or disconnects...
i know there is an array as "application.clients" and i know i should use "application.clients.length" in "main.asc" file to find the number of connected users BUT i can't get this number to the text area or dynamic text in my "swf file".
PLEASE help me by explaining a simple application which uses a "main.asc" file, an "action script" file and a "swf" file. and how to get the number of "application.clients.length", how to send (or call or get) it to the "action script" file, how to show this number in a text field or dynamic text...
i will be very appreciated if someone explain in AS3 and make me success...
thanks for reading...

well here you don't even need the button just tell your textfield to update everytime the server calls after a connection or disconnection. Do you know how to write actionscript at all? Because you would be well advised not to attempt media server stuff unless you know how to do the basics. Maybe you could start out with some client only applications.
import mx.controls.TextArea;
import mx.controls.Button;
import mx.utils.Delegate;
class SimpleChat_call extends MovieClip {
private var myTextArea:TextArea;
private var myButton:Button;
private var _nc:NetConnection;
private var _chatSO:SharedObject;
private function onLoad() {
myButton.addEventListener("click", Delegate.create(this, onUserCount));
public function connect( rtmpString:String) {
_nc = new NetConnection();
_nc.owner = this;
_nc.onStatus = function ( info ) {
if(info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success") {
trace("connected successfully");
this.owner.connectSO( this );
_nc.receiveUsercount = function (count) {
var myTextArea = this.owner.myTextArea;
myTextArea.text = count;
_nc.connect(rtmpString);
private function connectSO( nc ) {
_chatSO.connect( nc );
you didn't even try what i suggested did you because it would have worked without changing the client

Recording sound without Flash Media Server?

Hello,
I am totally new to Flash Media Server I need to be able to record sound via a Flash app and save it to a server preferably without the use of a Flash Media Server type setup. There is no requirement for live streaming.
Is it possible to record the sound and save in memory then pass the data/file as a query parameter to the server?
I don't even know if I've posted this in the correct place... any help/guidance will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Hi,
You can use any publisher to publish like FMLE and publish the streams to the application in applications folder suppose application name is sampleApp then create a folder in applications folder of FMS root directory and then keep the below mains.asc file which does the recording of published streams to the sampleApp application.
//main.asc
application.onConnect=function(clientObj)
return true;
application.onPublish = function(clientObj,streamObj){
trace("in application publish");
streamObj.record("record");
application.onUnpublish = function(clientObj,streamObj){
trace("on unpublish");
streamObj.record(false);
I think this should solve your problem.
Regards,
Amit

Why do I need Flash Media Server

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