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Building a Live Video Switcher with Flash Communication Server MX


Kevin Towes

Kevin Towes

Adobe

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Understanding the Switch Concept
  3. Building the Broadcaster/Encoder Application
  4. Building the Live Video Player Application
  5. Building the Video Switcher
  6. Building the Server-Side ActionScript
  7. Using Flash Video Streaming Service
Created:
28 July 2004
User Level:
Advanced

In this article, you will learn how to build a basic video switcher using Flash MX Professional 2004 and Flash Communication Server MX 1.5. This video switcher enables multiple people to broadcast video and audio to Flash Communication Server, and lets you control what the end user watches. You will learn how to use server-side ActionScript and Flash Communication Server messaging easily to control the source of the stream that your audience watches.

As a bonus, you will even incorporate switching between live and prerecorded video sources—all with nothing more than Flash Player, a camera, and some real personality.

In this article, you will create three Flash movies and one ActionScript communications file:

  • Live video broadcaster (simpleBroadcaster.fla)
  • Live video player (simplePlayer.fla)
  • Video switcher (simpleSwitcher.fla)
  • Server-side ActionScript file (fcsBroadcast.asc)

To help you get started, I created the user interfaces for this article. You can download the basic interface and the completed solution with some bonus material below. The basic interface contains all visual elements with the key ActionScript removed. To follow along with this tutorial, use the files in the fcsBroadcaster_start folder. The completed solution is located within the fcsBroadcaster folder. Both folders should be placed within the flashcom/applications folder on your server.

Requirements

For this article, you will need the most recent versions and updaters of these Macromedia products:

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004


Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX (version 1.5 updater 2)

Communication Authoring Components for Flash MX 2004

Source Files

Prerequisite Knowledge

This article makes significant use of ActionScript and server-side ActionScript. You should be comfortable with the ActionScript language. The user interface for this article is already complete, so you don't need to be a designer!

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About the author

Kevin Towes is the product manager in the Dynamic Media Organization at Adobe Systems responsible for defining, delivering, and supporting Adobe streaming video products and services. In his role, he manages products related to Flash Media Server and Flash Media Encoder, collaborating with the core product team, partners, professional services, business development, and sales groups to define product releases and deliver solutions to the market through complete product development lifecycles. Prior to Adobe, Kevin spent 13 years working as a prime consultant enabling customers with Flash-based communication, collaboration, social media, and video streaming solutions using Flash Media Server. His Flash Media Server Live Video work with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) led to an Emmy nomination in 2004.