"Prohibited Uses
The rights and licenses granted by Adobe in the RTMP Specification, including those granted in the Patent License, are conditioned upon Your agreement to use the RTMP Specification for only streaming video, audio and/or data content and not to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import or distribute: (i) any technology that intercepts streaming video, audio and/or data content for storage in any device or medium; or (ii) any technology that circumvents technological measures for the protection of audio, video and/or data content, including any of Adobe's secure RTMP measures. No right or license to any Adobe intellectual property is granted for such prohibited uses."

A long thread started on the list, and it was great to see not only community members participating but also several Adobe employees, including FMS engineers and even the product manager himself. Regardless of what you think of the RTMP license (I personally think it's a huge step in the right direction and underlines Adobe's commitment to removing barriers in this field) I think this level of engagement is rarely (ever?) seen by a multi-billion dollar company. Not only did Adobe engage, but they posted a wealth of information around the intricacies of RTMP/E/S security - many thanks to Kevin, Matthew, Asa, Jody and Brad (hope I didn't miss anyone) for regularly participating.

Further proof then (as if I didn't know) that the FlashMedia List is the place to be for the latest info on FMS, Flash video and its related technologies. And free Adobe tech support too - I suggest you subscribe right now :)
Once subscribed you can access the list archives here.

To clear thing up, Kevin Towes, FMS Product Manager at Adobe, just posted the following information to the FlashMedia List:

STRATUS - this will always be ahead of the curve, providing a way to help us roll out new features that are in Flash player, before we can have a server offering. The service is and will remain as a free non-commercial service from Adobe. This service is not FMS, and has no ability for Server side scripting, or customization.

AFCS/LIVECYCLE COLLABORATION SERVICE - this will be a commercial option for customers interested in building a business that includes RTMFP. We introduced a pricing model, and it has support for the features found inside Stratus 1.0 (supporting Flash player 10.0). Key advantage with this service is the framework, which is an option for developers to get started, and leverage RTMFP to RTMP failover technology. You still will not have access to server side scripting, but there are lots of APIs in the framework to get you going. The goal for this service is to provide developers an option to bring this technology into your solution.

FLASH MEDIA SERVER - we have not announced any new version of FMS yet that will support RTMFP. We did hint yesterday that we'll be updating FMS3.5 to version 3.5.3 later this year to support the new FP 10.1 features - and in a future version after that release - FMS may be one of your options to host a local service to build your own P2P applications - including introductions, and supporting server side programming.

The quality is nothing to write home about, which is likely due to a low bitrate used. My guess would be sub-300 kbit (see screengrab). Still, even in fullscreen and way better than the stamp sized experiences we used to see only a few years ago. How times have changed - here we have one of the biggest sporting events in the world streamed live, for free, over the net. I wish Sky would take some ideas from that.

But bitrates aside (they could be adjusted if wanted by the broadcaster), this is a huge event for live Flash video. After the Masters a few months ago I doubt that anyone still has any doubts about Flash as a viable and credible live streaming platform.

First of all I remember hearing that AIR is coming to mobile devices, which is cool, especially considering that AIR is ActionScript 3 only (outside HTML and JS and so on) so this is definitely one to watch. Another interesting note was that ActionScript 3 support will come to server side FMS, and while it was not mentioned when exactly this may be it was stated by the Flash Player Team that it was 'being worked on'. Nice, and FINALLY! The Red5 team is also working on this feature, and I am sure they'll have it added way earlier too. Lastly, it sounds as if the ball will soon be firmly be in Apple's court as far as Flash on the iPhone is concerned. The Flash Player Team 'is working on Flash support for the iPhone, and are doing the best job they can'. In the end however, the iPhone is a closed platform and it is up to Apple to decide if they want to 'allow' it or not. A lack of Flash on the device is definitely not down to Adobe not trying hard, and there don't seem to be any technical problems hindering it either, but rather it sounds like a question of politics on Apple's part. This is how read it. Adobe will also concentrate on other devices of course, and the iPhone is only one piece of the puzzle. The bottom line to be seems to be: the Flash Player for iPhone will be available sooner rather than later, but it's still down to Apple to ok it.

Anyway, that's it from me for now - the pace of this conference is relentless, in a good way.

At IBC2008, Adobe is also previewing new technologies that will be available in future versions of Adobe Flash Media Server. These include dynamic streaming for delivering the highest quality, uninterrupted viewing experience, and the ability to pause or rewind a live video stream. Expect more news from IBC over the coming days.

Full press release here.

So what have we got here? My PureMVC Skeleton App is a simple Flex project that uses thePureMVC framework to give you a bit of a head start with your next FMS project. I'm by no means suggesting that this is the best way to build an FMS app but what I can say is that it works well for me. Not only that but since I've picked up PureMVC I have been able to build much larger projects than ever before, and the framework allows me to come back to an app months later and pick it up in no time at all. Everything has its place and it's easy to find your way around, and projects generally end up well maintained.
One thing I should point out is that the app itself has no UI - there's nothing to see when you compile it (hence the skeleton bit in its name). You will however see traces if you compile a debug project, or install Firebug for Firefox so you can see the Thunderbolt AS3 traces I tend to use extensively.

In order to connect to your own FMS application you first need to create it on FMS (mine is called pmvcskeleton) and then go into the ResourceBundleProxy and on line 42 add your corresponding RTMP string. I'm not sure if this is a good idea but I often use ResourceBundles for configuration options such as the RTMP string, I find it quite handy since they usually do not change so I just compile that in.

It helps if you are a bit familiar with FMS based applications and the MVC design pattern. For everything else check out the PureMVC website, it has tons of info and a lively community. Or why not sign up to my FlashMedia List, there's always a bunch of knowledgeable people there ready to help.

On this note I will leave you to it, take a look at the app and feel free to post a comment if anything isn't clear.

Massive thanks to Simon who gave me some excellent tips when I got stuck with certainPureMVC nags.

Download the project .zip here.

This release mainly adds new features such as the new Dynamic Streaming, DVR functionality, HTTP delivery support, and H.264 enhancements. There are no changes in licensing or pricing. The editions also remains unchanged with the Flash Media Streaming Server (FMSS) taking care of your live and on-demand streaming needs while the Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) provides more complex features such as recording capabilities and Origin-Edge setups, as well as full support for server side scripting.
Of course you can also try the free Flash Media Development Server 3.5 and use all the features of FMIS up to a limit of 10 connections.

Download FMS 3.5 now.

Flash Media Live Encoder, Adobe's free live encoding tool for broadcasting live streams has also seen an update today, bringing it up to version 3.0. The major new feature here is the ability to encode multiple streams in multiple bitrates at once, publish them to FMS 3.5 and then make use of the Dynamic Streaming feature in a live setting. Pretty cool stuff.

You can download Flash Media Live Encoder 3.0 from this page.

According to Adobe's Serge Jespers, the RTMP details will soon be published on Adobe.com. The full press release is here.

"With the RTMP specification, developers and companies will be able to provide users with optimized audio, video and data streaming, no matter what kind of device the user is on or where the content is coming from," said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch. "Our ongoing commitment to openness is accelerating adoption of the Flash Platform by developers and resulting in a new generation of Web applications, content and video experiences that run reliably across operating systems and devices."

Understandably Adobe will not release details of the secure variants of RTMP such as RTMPE since it forms the backbone of some of the content protection measures in Flash Media Server.

Strobe is trying to alleviate these pains by providing a player framework which can be extended through a plug-in model. For example the connection routine between CDN A and CDN B differs drastically. In this case Strobe should (once released) allow both CDNs to provide connection routine plug-ins for Strobe (these may simply be some ActionScript3 classes) which developers can leverage easily without having to rework their existing video player code - provided it is built on top of Strobe.

Connection routines are of course just one aspect. Other implementation points may include advertising insertion, content syndication, micropayments, viewer authentication, transaction handling, and business model controls.

According to the FAQ Adobe Strobe is planned for release around the third quarter of 2009.

We also released the new DVRCast application that makes it easy to add DVR-enabled live streams to your website using Flash Media Server 3.5.

There's much more info on the new features on Kevin's blog.

You can download both tools from: http://www.adobe.com/go/fms_tools/

I can't wait to try these new features - just need to wait for the next suitable live event :-)
I think it is highly likely that this is the last update to the FLVPlayback component we will see as the upcoming Strobe framework is likely to replace the efforts made my the component. Love it or hate it, the FLVPlayback component helped countless Flash newcomers to get their video content online quickly. If this is indeed the last update then it will go out with a bang as these new features are pretty cool - and we've got a Flex version thrown in too.

ActionScript 2.0 introduced new language features like formal class definitions and strict typing that make it easier to build larger and more complex applications. However, many FlashCom developers quickly ran into problems when they tried to use strict typing with the NetConnection, NetStream, SharedObject, and other communication classes.