FMS goodies courtesy of Mr. Towes

A few Flash Media Server related items, courtesy of Mr. Kevin Towes, technical product manager extraordinaire for FMS:

Here's a tool to help you calculate bandwidth for Flash Video:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/apps/flv_bitrate_calculator/index.html

Also… a beginner’s guide to Flash Media Server 3
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/beginner_vod_fm3.html

And… a great article by Desiree Motamedi, product marketing manager for FMS
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/dmotamedi_fms3.html

Enjoy!

Flash Media Server 3 Ships Today

Adobe announced the Flash Media Server 3 family of products back in December last year, and today the products are actually shipping! I think the FMS product team did a great job with this release, not only in terms of adding features and improving performance, but also in listening to customer feedback and revising the pricing & licensing for the product.

So now we have three different editions for FMS:

• Flash Media Interactive Server 3 (FMIS) - list price $4500US
• Flash Media Streaming Server 3 (FMSS) - list price $995US
• Flash Media Development Server 3 (FMDS) - free!

Flash Media Interactive Server
This is the full-featured server that can be deployed as a pro server (a la FMS2) or in an origin/edge architecture, so a lot of flexibility in terms of deployment. If you're looking to build social media applications that require 2-way communication between the end user and the server (e.g. capturing a webcam stream, video blogging, collaboration apps, etc.), or you need an industrial-strength, scalable solution, this is the edition for you.

Flash Media Streaming Server
FMSS is an economical option for those customers who want to upgrade from progressive download and simply start streaming their video content. FMSS ships with applications for live broadcasts and on-demand playback that allow you to start streaming content out of the box. At this price point, you still benefit from features like improved performance, H.264/HE-AAC support, encrypted streaming, bandwidth detection, reporting and enhanced seeking.

Flash Media Development Server - Free!
FMDS is identical to the full blown FMIS, so you can build any type of streaming or social media applications without paying for the server technology upfront. Once you build the proof of concept for the 'next big thing' but it limits you to 10 concurrent connections. Pretty good value for a free download!

Not sure which edition is right for you? Try this comparison table at Adobe.com.

BBC iPlayer a huge success

I'm at the airport early, waiting for a red-eye flight from San Francisco to Toronto (via Las Vegas - ugh), so thought I'd share an interesting story that landed in my inbox.

BBC, the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, had been using Windows Media Player and Real for years to stream video to their online visitors - that is, until Christmas '07 when they launched the new Flash-based BBC iPlayer. The iPlayer allows the online viewing public to choose from over 250 BBC shows from the past seven days and either stream the video or download to their desktop. In the first two weeks of launch, the iPlayer was accessed by a million visitors for a whopping 3.5 million streams/downloads.

That is an 800% increase over what their online video traffic was with the WMP/Real solution! Just goes to show you that if you build it (with Flash Video), they will come. :)

Read more about it at the BBC site.

Flash Media Server & Adobe Media Player presentation

Here's a slide deck I presented recently at an Adobe eSeminar that covers the new features in Flash Media Server 3 as well as an overview of the Adobe Media Player.

Flash Media Server 3 Announced

Adobe announced the Flash Media Server 3 family of products yesterday (link to press release). Essentially, there are now two flavours of FMS available - Flash Media Streaming Server 3 and Flash Media Interactive Server 3. In addition to a whole slew of new features, the price and licensing for FMS has been drastically changed. 

For example, the Flash Media Streaming Server has been priced at $995 USD with no limitations in terms of bandwidth and number of concurrent connections. By contrast, the price of FMS2 Pro Edition was $4,500 with three available profiles including one for a 150 concurrent connections. If all you're looking for is to step up your progressive download video deployment to streaming video, or you want to broadcast live events, the interactive server may fit the bill at a fraction of the cost of deploying FMS2. 

One important distinction between FMS2 Pro Edition and FMSS3 is that FMSS3 is a video streaming only solution. In order to build multi-way applications, cluster servers, record video, enable server-side playlists, etc., you'll need to move up to the Flash Media Interactive Server 3, offered at $4,500 USD. FMIS3 basically combines the old Pro, Origin and Edge servers into one. You buy the same FMIS3 and choose to deploy it as either a Pro, Origin or Edge server. 

A developer edition is also available which has all the features of FMIS3, but is limited to 10 concurrent connections. A comparison of the editions is available on Adobe.com (link).

The new pricing, features and performance improvements really make the technology accessible to a much wider audience and position FMS for wide adoption. Pretty exciting times for Adobe and customers alike!