Stream Multi-Bitrate and Multi-Screen with Flash Media Server 4.5
At the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, web video consultant and the creator of LearnFromLisa.com, Lisa Larson-Kelley, gave a presentation on how to stream to every viewer with Flash Media Server 4.5. This was shortly before Adobe changed the name of the product to Adobe Media Server and upgraded it to version 5.
Larson-Kelley began by introducing the three versions of FMS 4.5.
"It's available in three different levels. There's the streaming server which is just for streaming. You don't get interaction, you don't get real-time communication. Strictly for streaming," said Larson-Kelley. "Then there's Interactive Server, which gives you access to some server-side code. You can do a little bit more with it. You can also start to play with peer-to-peer with Flash using RTMFP. We'll talk a little bit about that, too. It is limited to 500 connections for that. And then there's the big daddy, the enterprise server, that still has some connection limits, but it's higher, and also supports SIP."
For her presentation, Larson-Kelley focused on the free option.
What we're going to be using is the development server, which is free. So those of you who have already played with it, I'm sure you have this. You can download it for free and it's just limited to 10 connections," added Larson-Kelley.
Once she had explained the options, Larson-Kelley told the audience what they can do with FMS 4.5:
- Multiple video delivery methods
- Reach Flash, AIR, Android, iOS
- Real-time packaging of streams: HDS for Flash, HLS for iOS
- Integrated real-time interactivity
- Share data, webcam streams
- Content protection
- Stream and file encryption
- Tracking and logging
For the full session, watch the video below. Also, download a PDF of Larson-Kelley's presentation.
HOW-TO: Multi-Bitrate and Multi-Screen Streaming With Flash Media Server 4.5
The latest edition of Flash Media Server supports multi-bitrate streaming over a wider variety of protocols - not only to Flash Player and AIR, but to iPads and iPhones as well. New features in FMS 4.5 such as server-side HLS transcoding and adaptive bitrate (set-level) manifest support provide more flexibility than ever. In addition to introducing you to new features and best practices, this session provides you with examples of cross-platform video players that put them into action - detecting the viewer's bandwidth and operating system and delivering the appropriate format stream at the optimal bitrate.
Speaker: Lisa Larson-Kelley, Web Video Consultant, LearnFromLisa.com
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