Macromedia flash media server 2-developing media applications User Manual

CHAPTER 4

Working With Media Files

Macromedia Flash Media Server lets you deliver a broad range of media experiences. This
chapter includes information about creating live web-event broadcasts, customizing stream
delivery for individual clients, and MP3 publishing and playback.

Working with video

Flash Media Server lets you stream live and recorded video to Flash Player clients. Several
features make Flash Media Server powerful for video delivery.

Edge servers let you create large-scale live web events by distributing the server load.

Custom stream delivery lets you treat clients as individuals. You can deliver streams based on
Flash Player version. With a little extra code, you can also deliver streams based on client
bandwidth.

About creating live web events

Flash Media Server application clients can publish a live video stream to the server and
multiple clients can subscribe to the broadcast. This lets you create live web events.

If you need to hold a large live web event, with a large number of subscribers receiving the live
broadcast, subscribers can connect to the live stream through proxy servers (also called edge
servers). An edge server manages data traffic from an origin server so the origin server can
broadcast to a larger number of customers. For more information about edge servers, see
Using Flash Media Server Edge Servers.