TechNote

Adobe Flash 8 FLVPlayback component support for Video Streaming with Adobe Flash Communication Server and Flash Media Server

Issue

The Adobe Flash 8 Professional authoring tool includes a new component for playing back Adobe Flash Video assets. This new component, FLVPlayback, supports progressive download video as well as streaming video via Adobe Flash Communication Server MX and Adobe Flash Media Server 2. The FLVPlayback component doesn't work as MediaPlayback component in Adobe Flash MX 2004 used to for streaming video. It requires additional configuration for streaming video.

Solution

In order to use the FLVPlayback component with Adobe Flash Communication Server or Adobe Flash Media Server, you will need to update your server-side application script. A sample main.asc file is available in Adobe Flash 8. You can use it in your application or update your existing application main.asc with the code included in this sample. In a typical Windows Adobe Flash 8 installation, you can find this file located on the filesystem as follows:

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash 8\Samples and Tutorials\Samples\Components\FLVPlayback\main.asc

To use the FLVPlayback component to receive streaming video, an SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) XML file is required to describe the location of the server, application and video file to playback. Please review the Adobe Flash 8 documentation on SMIL files for more detail. The SMIL XML file contains the following information: server location, application name, instance name and video files. The SMIL XML file should be accessible to your Adobe Flash movie and its location is specified in the FLVPlayback contentPath property using the Component Inspector in the Adobe Flash 8 Professional authoring tool.

The following is an example of a SMIL XML file.

 <smil><head><meta base="rtmp://myserver/myapp/myinst" ><layout><root-layout   ></layout></head><body><switch><video href="myvideo_mdm.flv" system-bitrate="56000"  dur="3:00.1"><video href="myvideo_isdn.flv" system-bitrate="128000" dur="3:00.1"><ref href="myvideo_cable.flv" dur="3:00.1"/></switch></body></smil>