macromedia flash flashcom: For the speed of your video in mind, yes, purchasing the comm server will be
your best advantage. However, it can be accomplished via other "jerry-rigged"
methods that are never reliable. If you use a lot of video on the web, the FCS
will be worth it in the long run because Macromedia doesn't upgrade that
product near as much as the others.

Stacey R. Roestel
Eastern Washington University

I would like to know if I need to purchase the $499 comm. server in order to
have a flash site where a video of a person talking will be displayed ? there
will be 4 buttons, with video up to 60 seconds each that plays when button is
clicked. the videos will be filmed on green screen so I can just have the
person talking. here is a site that does this and the videos play extremely
fast: http://fullsail.com/
is there anything else I would need ?

If you are just going to stream a non-live video (like fullsail.com) I would
use Flash MX2004. No need for Flash Comm. Server. MX2004 has the capabilities
of Progressively Downloading a video into an application. This means, unlike
having an embedded video in your SWF, you can view it while it is still
downloading, it is independent of the SWF?s FPS (frame-per-second), the quality
is better and file size is smaller. However there is also the option of
streaming a video in the application.
Check out this link;
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/flv_download.html

If you are just going to stream a non-live video (like fullsail.com) I would
use Flash MX2004. No need for Flash Comm. Server. MX2004 has the capabilities
of Progressively Downloading a video into an application. This means, unlike
having an embedded video in your SWF, you can view it while it is still
downloading, it is independent of the SWF?s FPS (frame-per-second), the quality
is better and file size is smaller. However there is also the option of
streaming a video in the application.
Check out this link;
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/flv_download.html

thanks guys..
I found Stream Flash Video from a reliable content delivery network using vitalstream and speedera network i'll probably use that instead of purchasing the comm server.