Installation guide

• Tracking, reporting, and logging capabilities—Becauseprogressivedownloadisasimple
download of a le, you can’t easily log specic relevant statistics such as how long the video
was viewed, if the user navigated forward, backward, or paused the video, how many times
the viewer played the video, if the viewer le the web page before the video completed playing,
and so on. Streaming enables you to easily capture this important data.
• Full seek and navigation—Userscanseektoanypointinthevideoandhaveitstartplaying
immediately from that point. is makes streaming a great solution for longer playing videos
or applications such as video blogging, classroom lectures, and conference sessions, where
you may want to jump into the video at a specic point rather than requiring the viewer to
watch it from the beginning.
• Deep interactivity—eprecisecontrolfoundinstreamingenablesdeveloperstocreate
extensive interaction in their video applications. For example, the ability to switch camera
angles, have one video spawn another video, or seamlessly switch to alternate endings are all
enabled by streaming.
• Live video—Streamingprovidestheabilitytodeliverlivevideoandaudiofromanyconnected
webcam or DV camera, and even directly from some video cards, natively in Flash Player.
• Video capture and record(FlashMediaInteractiveServeronly)—Inadditiontolivestreaming,
Flash Media Server also gives you the ability to record video either in conjunction with the live
stream(forexample,archivinganevent)oronitsown(forexample,videomessaging).
• Multiuser capabilities(FlashMediaInteractiveServeronly)—Inadditiontoliveone-to-many
streaming, Flash Media Server also enables multiuser streaming of audio, video, and data for
the creation of video communication applications.
While streaming may be perceived as being more dicult than progressive download, they’re
actuallyextremelysimilar—theybothusethesamecomponentsandthesameActionScript
commands. Streaming just gives the developer more power to create rich, interactive
video applications.
e only potential downside to streaming is that it requires special server soware. Just as a robust
data application requires you to install an application server in addition to your web server, robust
media delivery applications require a streaming server in addition to the web server.
Customerswhohavehigh-volumestreamingneeds,popularcontent,orcriticaluptime
requirements but don’t want to build their own infrastructure can get the benets of streaming
videoinAdobeFlashPlayerbyutilizingaFlashVideoStreamingService(FVSS).eseAdobe
partners oer load-balanced, redundant deployment of Flash Media Server over a reliable content
delivery network. For more information about FVSS partners, visit www.adobe.com/go/fvss.
When to choose streaming
You can use streaming with the Flash Media Server in situations where you need to:
• Deliverleslongerthan30secondsorlargerthan100Kbps
• Performbandwidthdetection,allowingyoutodeliverthebestqualityvideoforthe
available hardware
• Monitorquality-of-service
• Performreal-timetracking
• Providereal-timedatasharingandinteractivitytoyourvideoexperiences
• Streamlivevideoandaudio
• Recordvideoandaudio
• Servemorestreamswithlessbandwidth
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