Welcome!

[robwood]

I am working with an FLV that is located on a streaming server. Previously, I would host the SWF on a server (e.g. http://www.url.com/name-of-movie.swf) and put an absolute reference to the file on the streaming server.

This works fine.

Others have suggested putting the SWF onto the streaming server too, and linking to the FLV using a relative path.

Can anyone shed any light on which is the best method to use?

[alavri]

Hello,

I have worked a lot with streaming video and have my own hosted Flash Media server. Linking to an FLV on a Flash media server is different than on the same server the website is on.

First, you need to link the FLV file using rtmp:// ( instead of http://) also you need to drop the ".flv" from the address in flash.

so here is an example connection string:
nc.connect(null);
ns.play("video/NameOfMovie.flv");

that would change to this:
nc.connect("rtmp://alavrifms.flashmediacast.com/vod/");
ns.play("NameOfMovie");

if you are using the FLVPlayback component in Flash the content path would change
from:
"video/NameOfMovie.flv"
to:
"rtmp://alavrifms.flashmediacast.com/vod/NameOfMovie"

As far as putting the swf on the streaming server there is no reason for this and it would not help performance and would probably hurt it or not work. When Flash connects to a streaming server through rtmp:// it establishes a reliable streaming connection. If both parts of that connection are on the same server than you are not allowing it to establish this connection properly, and would defeat the purpose

Hope this helps

[robwood]

My experience of streaming servers is pretty limited, but it does seem logical to keep only the FLV on the streaming server.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply!