Why is this so difficult ?

[MP Haskins]

We've just installed Flash Media Server, and we're trying to get a Flash 8
movie to get a stream of it.

Server Configuration
Standard default installation, nothing here has been changed apart from the
location of the applications onto another physical disk.

The Admin Console shows a version number of 2.0.3 r68.

Test Application
The following folder structure was created under the applications folder
Test -> Streams -> _definst_ ->

In the _definst_ folder we have placed 4 flv files:
2 files encoded with flash video encoder, 1x flv7 and 1 x flv8
2 files encoded with sorenson squeeze.

Also tried creating an instance folder called 150k.

After every change the server and/or application was restart/reloaded.

We have added / updated / changed a file called main.asc that was placed at
the same level as the streams folder. This file was taken from the Samples that
comes as part of the Flash installation.

Issues experienced

1. When trying to import a video using functionality within Flash 8 and
connected to the server, it failed to find the file. Here we have tried all
possible combinations of the URL

rtmp:/127.0.0.1/test/stream/_definst_/flv8.flv
rtmp:/127.0.0.1/test/_definst_/flv8.flv
rtmp:/127.0.0.1/test/flv8.flv
(and again with two //)


2. When we try and get a stream from the server using ActionScript to
establish the connection and retrieve the stream, we are only getting audio
and not video. When we put the server into debug and click the play stream
button we can see the stream being played with both audio and video.

We noticed that the Server was using Flash Player 9 to show the stream, so we
updated our flash players to the same vesion, but we still only get the audio
and no video.

We have loaded the flv files into a flash movie by getting them of the
harddisk and they show fine.

We have tried installing the Server on two different computers and we get the
same issues.
We have tried accessing the server from half a dozen computers with the same
issues.
We have developed the flash movie on two different machine with

Does anyone have any ideas regarding solving these issues.

Thanks

[JayCharles]

Although I've not used the video import wizard in Flash (I typically code my
connections manually), I think I see your problems.

First, your directory structure should look like this:

applications/appname/streams/instancename (streams should not be capitalized)

1. Although the flv files are within the streams directory, you don't want to
use the full path to them. Assuming you are running your .swf on the local FMS
machine (and assuming your flv files are in the streams/_definst_ dir), try
using one of the following as your rtmp string:

rtmp:/localhost:1935/test/somevideo.flv

if it doesn't like that one, try leaving off the .flv extension, like so:

rtmp:/localhost:1935/test/somevideo

2. This problem would typically be caused by the stream video not being
attached to a video object in the .swf. Can you post the code you are using for
connecting to and playing your netstream?

[MP Haskins]

Thanks for the response.

The directory structure on the server looks like this
applications\test\streams\_definst_\flv8.flv . This is on windows 2003
server.


I have just tried entering rtmp:/localhost/test/flv8.flv and
rtmp:/locahost/test/flv8 as part of the Import video wizard and it
claimed it could not find the file.

When we don't use the Import Video wizard we are using the following code

nc = new NetConnection();
nc.connect("rtmp://127.0.0.1/test");

ns = new NetStream(nc);
my_video.attachVideo(ns);
ns.setBufferTime(0);
ns.play("flv8");

Where 'my_video' is a FLVPlayback component. Using this method we can get
audio but no video.

Any further pointers or suggestions would be gratefully received

[JayCharles]

The flv playback component is not a video object... it's a component. Try this:

From the library, create a new video object (right click on the library and
choose new video... keep the "video" radio button selected). Then drag an
instance of the video object onto your stage, and name it my_video . That
should fix the missing video issue.

[MP Haskins]

We did as you suggested.

Now we can see what we believe is the first frame of the video.

I'm no flash expert, so this might sound like a stupid question, but do I have
to add controls to allow the rest of the video to be played?

[MP Haskins]

OK sorted this we needed a ns.stop() line in there as it was continously
hitting the server and just showing the first frame.

So why can't we use the flv playback component? All the examples that I've see
say that we should be using this now.

Thanks again

[JayCharles]

There's no reason you can't use the component, you just can use it in the same
way as a video object. The FLVPlayback handles the netconnection and netstream
for the video, so you just feed it all of the info and it does the heavy
lifting.

I prefer to write my own code, mainly because I find the prefab components to
be a bit bloated, and I don't like to be limited by having to work around or
modify someone else's code to make my apps work the way I want them to.

If you choose to use the component, be aware that there is a main.asc file
required to make it work. AFAIK, that isn't documented anywhere. You'll find
the file here (assuming you're running windows and you installed flash 8 to the
default location):

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash 8\Samples and
Tutorials\Samples\Components\FLVPlayback\main.asc