DotNetNuke and Adobe Flash Media Server Playback

What is Adobe Flash Media Server?

Flash Media Server delivers real-time media such as streaming video for playback, streaming audio, live video, and multiuser gaming to the Adobe Flash Player, Adobe AIR, and Adobe Flash Lite applications. These players run on multiple platforms and browsers, and provide a consistent method and common vehicle for delivering content. If you're concerned about your end user experience as regards to media and playback, you should seriously consider delivering your assets from the Adobe platform.

Why Bother - I Post Video Files on my Web Server and they Playback Just Fine

• Did you know that your video files aren't secure?
  They are easily copied by the end user, just like any image, graphic, content, or script.
• Do you plan on always having only a handful of visitors at a time?
  It doesn't take many simultaneous requests of the same video to degrade playback, while also negatively affecting users on other areas of your web site.
• Do you get tired of waiting for the progressive download of the video so that you can watch the "last chapter?"
  Unless the video file is downloaded and in the browser's cache (see point 1), you'll have to wait for the pace of the download to match up with the point in the video that you're trying to watch.
• Tired of rebuffering?
  You know, the video plays, the video stops and rebuffers, the video plays, the video stops and rebuffers...
• Are you getting hit with excess bandwidth charges?
  Because each video often downloads in its entirety whether someone watches a short clip or the entire video, it's only a matter of time before you begin to see your hosting account charge increase due to bandwidth use.
• Are you wishing that the quality of the video was better?
  Postage stamp sized video, pixellated playback, and low bandwidth / high bandwidth video links can all be a thing of the past.

Flash Media Server Considerations and Features

• Support for Multiple Encodings
  On2 VP6, H.264, Sorenson Spark, MP3, Speex, Nellymoser, and more.
• Dynamic Streaming and HD Quality
  The client and server can seamlessly negotiate the optimal bandwidth for playback in real time, and do it in such a way that frames don't get dropped in the process. Your clients will always receive the best video possible.
• Live Video with DVR Functionality
  Watch video on demand, then pause, play, and seek as if it were a prerecorded stream.
• Data Encryption Built In
  Your media files are protected because they never get cached by the client browser - Flash does all of the heavy lifting. For an added layer of security, the video streams can also be encoded in real time coming off of the server by simply switching the protocol from RTMP to RTMPE.
• Server-side ActionScript API
  Control login procedures, republish content to other servers, allow and disallow users access to resources, allow users to update and share information, and take advantage of extended logging and monitoring using familiar syntax and APIs.
• Performance and Scalability
  By deploying a cluster of servers to increase the number of supported connections, or instituting edge servers to aggregate requests as a reverse proxy, load can be distributed in various ways to best suit your particular need.

First up, there are two flavors - Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) and Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS). OK, three - there's also the developer edition. Confused? Let's simplify things a bit. It's the same software installation for any of them, so no extra work there.

• Developer Edition - is limited to 10 simultaneous connections. Other than that, you get a complete feature set. Consider it FMIS with a 10 connection limit.
• Flash Media Server (FMS) - licensed at $995, it can deliver a solid playback experience. The problem is if you need to have more control over the experience - you can't do much of anything server side, so it's really just a playback vehicle.
• Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) - licensed at $4500, it does it all. Virtually all aspects can be controlled and/or monitored because of the ability to execute server-side code.

What About DotNetNuke and Media Playback

It's easy enough to create your own custom player, and Adobe even helps you get started by providing some sample code and updated components. For example, the Flash video playback component has been updated (FLVPlayback 2.5) and can be added to either Flash CS3 or CS4 for immediate use. Dynamic streaming is made available through the use of standard SMIL playlists on the server. And video files can simply be dropped into an appropriate directory for immediate playback.

DNN module vendors are slowly adding support as well. What you need to look for is support for the RTMP protocol, as this is how you access the video files for playback. Some good starting points for consideration are the top selling Ultra Video Gallery and Ultra Flash Player.