File Sharing over P2P in Flash Player 10.1 with Object Replication
July 14th, 2010
Read also: Video-on-Demand over P2P in Flash Player 10.1 with Object Replication
Object Replication
Object Replication is the most lowest-level P2P access available in Flash Player 10.1 (followed by Multicast, Posting and Directed Routing). It basically enables you to send chunks of data between peers. Object Replication is the only P2P access method that guarantees that all data will be transferred to all receiving peers.
Demo
I’ve built this simple file sharing application, which basically loads a file and then you start sharing it. Open another client to start receiving the file.
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Directed Routing Explained in Flash 10.1 P2P
June 4th, 2010
Directed Routing enables you to send data to a specific client in the peer-to-peer group (NetGroup). It requires stable and correct topology to work well - still it’s very useful.
There has been already something written about directed routing. But I’d like to share with you much more.
First, let me explain you which methods does what. You have basically three main functions sendToNearest, sendToNeighbor and sendToAllNeighbors. See image below.
Image: Peer-to-Peer Directed Routing in Flash Player 10.1 [Bigger image]
Continue reading to understand how it all works.
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List of RTMP clients
control FMS remotely
August 24th, 2009
When building realtime applications, you would probably like to control Flash Media Server or LiveCycle DS remotely to push messages from 3rd party software.
The use-case is obvious, connecting two realtime/messaging services together. Imagine a pipe of messages on one side utilizing e.g. JMS (Java Message Service - http://java.sun.com/products/jms/) and on the other side FMS, which is pushing this into Flash Player clients.
In most cases, connecting RTMP servers with 3rd party services might be very useful, so this is why I have created this list of RTMP clients…
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iDnes.cz switching from Windows Media to Flash Media Servers - Exposed!
February 6th, 2009
Last couple of months I’ve been concentrating next to all the other things on iDnes.cz (in fact the biggest news company in Czech Republic). According to market trends, they’ve decided to go forward in video streaming on all of their sites (as they’ve stated in the interview) and asked me if I can help them to bring the most outstanding Flash Video Player to achieve their goals.
My vision was to build Video Player based on Flex, which is actually something really not common, while Flex generates big SWF files, it’s not lightweight and it needs Flash Player 9 … on the other side - it’s enterprise solution - team cooperation (SVN), Flex Builder programming, layout support and you can also easily skin it and lot of other pluses.
After all of discussions about pros and cons, the company decided to use Flex, Flash Media Servers (video codec: H.264) and I’ve realized that this is going to be stunning!
Flex => Flash Player 9 => H.264 + AS 3.0 => cool!
And now I am going to tell you why this project is really important for the developers in Czech Republic:
(FYI: since iDnes.cz is big, all comes big)
- rapid growth of Flash Player 9.0.115 penetration (AS 3.0 + H.264 video support)
(So now every developer in CZ can count on this and you guys tell your customers that AS 2.0 is not the right way) - Flex is fat, so I’ve used Runtime Shared Library (RSL) [version 3.2.0.3794 - get it here]
(I propose you to use same as this one will probably get nearly 100% penetration very very soon here and you can now tell your customers that the size is not the problem of Flex apps in our region if you correctly explain RSL pros to them - so GO AHEAD! and use the same version as me. This is actually the version we’ve decided to use across all projects of FlashPlatform.cz User Group for upcoming period and this library also supports P2P and lot of great stuff)
Flex Video Player Screenshot
My advice for convincing your clients to use Flex is simple:
- As Czech Republic is small, we can control our activities among us in user group (for instance: http://group.flashplatform.cz)
- To use one Flex SDK using RSL for certain period of time (now version 3.2.0.3794 will get sufficient penetration)
- => even small widgets and video players or plug-ins can be written in Flex though
Also many thanks to Robin Raszka (YellowMedia) for helping me out with styling and robust skinning of the player using CSS.
Good Luck folks and looking forward to see new tiny Flex apps coming up.
Interview and start-up article of iDnes.cz Video Player (Czech only):
http://zpravy.idnes.cz/portal-idnes-cz-prechazi-na-modernejsi-prehravac-videi-p1u-/media.asp?c=A090204_191759_media_pei
