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Jozsef Vass

Jozsef Vass

Adobe

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Benefits of RTMFP
  3. ActionScript 3.0 API supporting RTMFP
  4. Exploring the Video Phone sample application
Created:
11 December 2008
User Level:
Intermediate, Advanced
Products:
Flash Player
Flex

Stratus service for developing end-to-end applications using RTMFP in Flash Player

Adobe Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5 introduce a new communications protocol, Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), whose low latency, end-to-end peering capability, security, and scalability make it especially well suited for developing real-time collaboration applications by not only providing superior user experience but also reducing operators' costs.

Earlier versions of Flash Player use Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and require Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) for interactive collaboration applications (such as Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro) or audio/video streaming. While RTMP is an excellent choice for streaming media, shared objects, or remoting, it has limited ability of meeting real-time requirements of interactive audio and video communications.

In order to use RTMFP, Flash Player endpoints must connect to an RTMFP-capable server, such as the Adobe Stratus beta service or a future version of FMS. Stratus is a hosted rendezvous service that aids establishing communications between Flash Player endpoints. Unlike FMS, Stratus does not support media relay, shared objects, scripting, etc. So by using Stratus, you can develop applications only where Flash Player endpoints are directly communicating with one another.

Flash Player is already the market leader in online video distribution over the web. With the introduction of RTMFP and advanced media compression technologies, Flash Player 10 is well positioned as the leader in real-time communications as well.

In this article, I first highlight the benefits of using RTMFP in real-time communications applications. Second, I describe the new ActionScript 3.0 API for managing direct end-to-end RTMFP connections. Finally, I present our VideoPhone sample application.

Requirements

In order to make the most of this article, you need the following software and files:

Flex Builder 3

Note: Please follow the instructions in Introducing Flex SDK 3.2 and Flex Builder 3.0.2 to install Flex Builder 3.0.2. This also includes Flex SDK 3.2, which is required to build applications targeting Flash Player 10. Although you may also use Adobe Flash Professional CS4 for development, this article instructs how to build a sample application using Flex Builder 3.

Flash Player 10

Sample files:

Prerequisite knowledge

Familiarity with ActionScript 3.0 and Flex Builder is required.

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About the author

Jozsef Vass is a computer scientist on the Flash Media Plus team, where he focuses on real-time communications aspects of Flash Player. Prior to joining Adobe, Jozsef worked for companies pioneering VoIP technologies. He has authored numerous articles in the areas of networking and multimedia communications, and holds three patents.