Hi again,

I've been working a lot with already existing videos, streaming local cams,
and recording vids, and I've used the flash com server for all my work... It
was a really good deal, and i am satisfied about what i have reached so far.

Anyway, now i am facing a new requirement of streaming TV channels. Is it
possible to continue using macromedia products in that field? there is a lack
of resources regarding this issue, and I really would like to use the FMS in
this too.

Please advice whether is there a possibility, and which is better to be used.

Thanks in advance.

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do this. As long as you can feed the
signal to a video capture device, you can stream it through FMS.

I suppose you could take a line from the TV station's boradcast feed, and pump
it into a capture card on a PC. Then you just need to select the capture card
as the camera device (in the Flashplayer settings) as your camera. Ofcourse,
you'll need a capture card or device that has a driver Flashplayer sees as a
camera.

Thanks for the reply Jay,

If it is that simple, then GREAT :).

Anyway, its just that i did not test it yet in a real TV channel... but what i
am thinking about right now is: how can i run a video from the server, shall i
create a client there, which presents the TV stream, then publish it with a
specific name, and let clients connect to that stream? or is there anyway else?

another question is whether there are some websites that use flash media
server for there TV streaming!! i have not found any company that does so!!!!
all are using WM technology... is Flash media good only for the static and
saved videos?

its just that i love macromedia... :), and i want it to be everywhere

AFAIK, the only way you would be able to take the browser out of the quation
would be to have someone develop an application for you that uses the Flash
Virtual machine without the browser plugin. That's beyond the scope of my
expertise.

The easiest thing to do would be to run the broadcast through a browser on a
computer at the TV station (the one the program feed would be connected to)..

Hello,

Thanks for the response...

But, what about the second query? I'll copy it from my previous blog:
"another question is whether there are some websites that use flash media
server for there TV streaming (Live broadcast)!! i have not found any company
that does so!!!! all are using WM technology... is Flash media good only for
the static and saved videos (VOD)?"

And another thing... I've seen a documentation about Windows Media Services
performance along with the Microsoft Server 2003, everything was going great to
the side of macromedia's flash media server until i reached the point of
bandwidth available for each user and limitations...

with macromedia professional license, you may connect up to 2500 users with a
throughput of 25Mbps, Please correct me if i am worng, but if the 2500 users
were all online, then the bandwidth for each user would be 10 Kbps !!! is this
true?

i've seen some documents that shows the performance of window's solution which
icludes a study case: here is it: (Microsoft study case):
Hardware: HP/Compaq Proliant ML530 G2 servers, dual 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) Intel
Xeon processors, 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM, 2 Compaq NC6136 fiber-optic gigabit
Ethernet adapters, and a Compaq 5312 Smart Array Controller using four 36 GB
Ultra SCSI 15,000 RPM hard disk drives
Software: Windows Server 2003 enterprise edition, Windows Media Services.

Result: Served 2600 Simultaneous users with bandwidth of 300 Kbps , WAW!

Please advise, we are in the process of making a decision... and still i feel
like i am missing somthing regarding macromedia.

I can't say I know of any sites doing live TV simulcasts, but then again, I've
never gone looking.

The pro license has 3 profiles:

100 connections/unlimited bandwidth
1000 connections/40mbps bandwidth
2500 connections/25mbps

Bandwidth allotments are cumulative (not per user). Once you reach your
bandwidth limit, new connection requests will be rejected, even if you haven't
met your connection limit

You can choose whichever profile works best for you. If you have more than one
license on a given server, the profile will apply to all the licenses (you can
mix & match profiles).

In the case of your 300kbps video stream, it seems your best option is the
1000/40 profile. This will let you serve about 136 concurrent users on each
license.

Flash media server does not do dynamic compression, so your bandwidth
consumption per user will be based on the bitrate of the publishing stream. You
can adjust that a bit on the client side by reducing the playback FPS, but it's
not going to make enough difference to make FMS more cost effective than WMS or
other streaming technologies.

Of course, there's the origin/edge license scheme for high volume deployments.
I haven't worked with it myself, so I can't comment on how well it works. I
understand the cost is somewhere in the area of $45k for 5000 users/unlimited
bandwdith... but my info isn't from Adobe so don't take my word as fact on that
one.