Logged In

Flash Media Server 2: No pain, all gain

As the product manager for Macromedia Flash Media Server 2, it's my job to represent the next generation of streaming media tools for creating and delivering innovative, interactive media applications to the broadest possible audience. But advocating the product isn't enough. Understanding the business environment you work in is important too. Otherwise I'm just preaching to the choir.

Let's be honest. I know you love Macromedia Flash. I love Flash too. I've been working with Flash since version 4. (O tellTarget, where art thou?) You know why Flash video rocks. You've read the articles in the Flash Developer Center or the Edge newsletter. You've known since 2002 that experience matters. You know that Flash treats streaming media just like any other object, allowing for scripting, timing, and interaction with digital media. You know that Macromedia Flash Player is lightweight, ubiquitous, and cross-platform. You know that ActionScript has evolved into a grown-up development language. You know that the new On2 VP6 codec provides great video quality at lower bit rates than ever before. You know that Flash Player 8 has amazing new video features such as real-time alpha channeling and batch encoding.

Put simply, you know that only the Flash Platform can deliver the next generation of interactive, engaging multimedia experiences.

In a prior life, I worked at DoubleClick. Over the course of six years, I did everything from answer tech support calls to product manage video advertising tools. I've worked with publishers and advertisers who use every major digital media delivery platform out there. I have witnessed their pain getting audio and video to work on the web.

I realize that designers and developers understand the vision of the Flash Platform. You see a suite of tools designed with you in mind, and you get busy building unique, expressive, dynamic experiences. After you make your storyboards and kludge your mockups, you hold your breath during the demos and celebrate when they (mostly) work as you envisioned. And then, one sad day, the announcement from the bean counters comes: They want to go with [insert other media server here] because it's cheaper or it's enterprise ready or their brother-in-law works for the company.

Get ready to spend the next six-months-to-forever learning more than you ever wanted to know about browser compatibility matrices; reading hate mail from Firefox, Macintosh, and Linux end users; and working with tools that were explicitly designed to annoy your end users.

Don't want to? Don't worry: Here are five things you need to know about Flash Media Server 2 for when you talk with the rest of the world. Repeat these points often enough and you'll save your sanity, impress your bosses, help your clients, and maybe even create something extraordinary.

1. Flash Media Server increases your ROI for digital media delivery

If you happen to be a really good developer who has lots of thick O'Reilly books lying around, you've probably figured out a way to make streaming media as painless as possible for your end users. Your nifty code sniffs the presence or absence of each supported media player on their system and then points them to the right streaming media server—on which you've carefully placed your content that you encoded in every conceivable, supported format. Maybe you've even taken care of displaying a big "Sorry, you're out of luck" message to every Firefox, Macintosh, or Linux user.

What you've really done during all those hours of development, testing, and deployment is assume a substantial cost of fixing your broken tools.

Flash Media Server 2 offers the widest reach across browsers and platforms. No more headaches over encoding videos in multiple formats for a wide range of media players, each with different production tools, learning curves, and playback quirks. No more maintaining multiple page versions with clunky JavaScript or multiple-choice tests for your viewers to wade through.

Once you ditch the hidden cost of fixing your tools, you'll find that Flash Media Server is more cost-effective to build on, QA, deploy, and maintain than the alternatives.

2. Flash Media Server keeps your content secure

Flash Media Server 2 includes a suite of secure streaming tools to keep your content protected. URLs are hidden in virtual directories and filenames are obscured in the SWF format. Audio/video content streamed to Flash Player using Flash Media Server is not cached locally. The proprietary RTMP protocol protects against stream ripping. New access controls in Flash Media Server allow for straightforward integration with back-end databases for user authentication. Finally, Flash Media Server 2 supports 128-bit SSL encryption for both incoming and outgoing streaming data.

3. Flash Media Server can make you more money

Media delivered using Flash Media Server will reach a larger audience. For example, after Showtime Networks launched a new video trailer website using Flash Media Server 2, their video-clip viewership increased 150%. If you have ever considered—or are considering—ad-supported content, then using Flash Media Server will grow your audience and increase your ad inventory. More reach equals more ad impressions. And because your end users will have better experiences, they'll stay on your site longer and become more engaged with your content.

4. Flash Media Server scales

The new Origin-Edge server architecture in Flash Media Server 2 may not be as sexy as some of the other innovative features you've seen but it's the kind of technology that will make any network engineer smile (get your phone cams ready). The Origin-Edge architecture surrounds your application logic server (the Origin) with a hierarchical network of strong-as-an-ox Edge servers. This network supports Edge caching, stream splitting, real-time bandwidth monitoring, live broadcasting, and advanced route management to ensure the stability of your applications and the best-possible experience for your end users. New W3C-compliant logging in Flash Media Server lets you easily analyze and report on usage with a variety of existing tools.

5. Flash Media Server is easy to get started with

Macromedia and our partners provide a number of options—from encoding to delivery and playback—so that working with Flash video fits easily into your existing workflow.

For internal development teams, Flash video is simple to encode and deploy. Generate it directly from a number of encoding applications such as Flash Professional 8, Sorenson Squeeze, and many more. Deliver large-scale video applications using the Origin-Edge architecture in Flash Media Server 2.

If you prefer to outsource your video delivery, use the Flash Video Streaming Service. Content delivery network partners such as Akamai, Limelight, and VitalStream let you create Flash video experiences on their networks. Not only can you scale and grow globally that way but you don't have to worry about setting up or maintaining any server hardware.

Bonus: Flash Media Server will make your competition jealous

I couldn't stop at just five points. Here's one more. Web media is much more than just an opportunity to port ordinary broadcasting to the web. If all we do is move the same content and the same viewing model onto a different screen, then we've truly failed at creating "TV 2.0." Simply shoving static television or radio content down to a desktop computer is like driving a Porsche in second gear on the Autobahn. You've got a captive audience actively requesting your content, leaning forward, surrounded by input devices. Don't make them go back to the couch.

Digital media on the web needs to be new and completely different. It should be everything that today's media is not. It should be an interactive, engaging, responsive, and overall exciting experience.

Flash Media Server 2 has both the brains and brawn to drive these new experiences. Once you move beyond basic audio/video streaming, Flash Media Server 2 helps you stand out above the competition. Create and deploy amazing new applications, thanks to multi-user text and video chat, live audio and video capturing from viewers' web cams, and a new application integration interface that supports XML web services.

With the release of Flash Media Server 2, Macromedia challenges you to break the rules of boring-box web video. Create something new. Choose tools that work for you rather than abuse you. Inspire yourself and make your parents proud. Interact with your viewers and they will reward you with their attention and loyalty.

About the author