Flash Communication Server MX (FlashCom) is
a
technology that enables
your Flash movies (which are referred
to
as clients
in the context of FlashCom) to
communicate in real time with the server. FlashCom enables clients to
communicate using text-based commands and enables Flash clients to
record, stream live, and play back video and audio. The applications
of using FlashCom are vast. You can:
Create text-based chat rooms
Create video conferencing applications
Broadcast live events, conferences, and seminars, and archive the audio and video streams for future playback
Create interactive education systems
This chapter addresses many problems specific to publishing and subscribing to audio and video content. Additionally, we’ll take a look at the server-side aspects of FlashCom. See Recipe 16.6, Recipe 17.5, and Recipe 17.6 for applications using FlashCom remote shared objects.
Here is some of the terminology used throughout this chapter. Note that our conventions are not used universally by the developer community.
A stream is used to
control
the flow of data—be it text, audio, video, or other
media—to, from, and
within a Flash movie. A net
stream
, which takes its name from
ActionScript’s NetStream
class,
is any audio or video content that is sent to a FlashCom server from
the client (publishing stream) or from the server to the client
(subscribing stream).
We use the term FlashCom to refer to the software that enables realtime communication ...
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