Streamalot: Streaming
Media Tips, Tricks, and Hints
Flash
Streaming with Flash
Flash has always been developed and used for multimedia purposes, but until version 6, the possibilities for audio streaming were limited, and there was no video support. With versions 6 and 7, Macromedia introduced video support and a new file format to support various ways of streaming. This article covers only a streaming variant called "progressive download", which does not need server support.
FLV Streams
FLV is a format which separates the streamable content and the Flash movie. The results are a very compact Flash movie acting as a multimedia player and a container for streamable content, from which the Flash movie loads a stream on demand.
A single FLV stream contains one audio stream and one video stream. Flash supports uncompressed sound and various compressed formats like MP3 and ADPCM, as well as the proprietary Nellymoser audio codec. With Flash version 6, Macromedia also introduced video support. In version 6, only the Sorenson H.263 video codec was supported. This is a slightly modified version of the open H.263 standard. The latest Flash version, 7, introduced a second video format called "Screen Video", which is a simple, lossless video format, especially developed for screen capturing.
Progressive Download and Video Streaming with Flash
You have basically three options to deliver Flash Video to website visitors using Flash Player:
