第一眼:Flash Media Server 4

Remember those late-night infomercials where you're guaranteed to add bulk and muscle to your skinny frame? 如果你现在买, they'll also throw in another supplement-free of charge-that guarantees you'll lose weight, 不管你吃什么?

While those types of offers have been the butt of many jokes (and a few lawsuits), the premise has been enough to sustain these ads for years, even as technology has advanced: From their start in the classifieds section of magazines such as Popular Science to late-night television and, 最后, 进入你的垃圾邮件文件夹, the premise touches a near-universal desire to better ourselves, 无论是通过增加肌肉, 减肥, 或者两者的结合.

Adobe is making a similar offer, although it's studiously avoiding late-night television. The offer goes something like this: Bulk up on our new flagship server, part of the Flash Media Server 4 family, 以高昂的价格升级, and we promise your media delivery budget will go on a bandwidth diet as soon as it's implemented.

听起来好得令人难以置信? After a first look at the Flash Media Server 4 (FMS 4) family of servers, the offer appears valid.
But don't take our word for it: Stay tuned for a testimonial later in the article from a large technology company that put the FMS 4 premise to the test.

构建块

Just like our late-night weight loss infomercial example, where more than just a diet supplement is needed to lose weight, FMS 4 works hand in hand with several key product rollouts that have become available over the past few months.

To allow for FMS 4's functionality such as Fast Switching and Fusion, which we'll highlight in the next section, Adobe needed to roll out upgrades across its entire ecosystem, from content protection and HTTP delivery to updated players.

Deciphering the timing of all these rollouts was a bit of a puzzle, as each product update seemed to need another product not yet ready for prime time.

For instance, Adobe could have launched Flash Media Streaming Server (FMSS 4), which supports RTMPE. 但是持久加密, used in Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) and Flash Media Enterprise Server (FMES) in conjunction with Flash Access, would have required additional tools.

"The move from session encryption with RTMPE to persistent encryption with Flash Access 2.0是关键,弗洛里安·佩斯托尼说, Adobe's principal product manager of rich media solutions, 当Flash Access推出时. "Many content owners may choose to download content to AIR-based rich internet applications for offline viewing. 自Flash Access 2以来.0 content will play back on Flash Player 10.1及AIR 2.0, persistent encryption is an important step toward making offline players adhere to licensing and DRM concerns."

Flash Player 10.1 was still in beta at the time of Flash Access 2.0's launch, as was HTTP Dynamic Streaming (aka Project Zeri). Both 最后 launched in June, but HTTP Dynamic Streaming only supported on-demand content.

FMS 4的出现, 然后, is meant to address all aspects of the ecosystem: HTTP Dynamic Streaming for live encoding, 结合快速切换, 和层云, Adobe's peer-assisted networking for its new Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) delivery protocol.

Support for Stratus is a key selling point for the flagship FMES version. While Stratus was renamed Fusion under FMS 4, the RTMFP protocol's inclusion in Flash Player 10.1 meant that Stratus would enable group or user segmenting, to send messages only between members of the group. This was an important element of FMS 4's implementation of Fusion, as application-level multicast "provides one (or a few) -to[o]-many streaming of continuous live video and audio live video chat using RTMFP groups."

The lag time between Flash Player 10.1's availability in mid-June and the October availability of FMS 4 was beneficial in one respect: The typical time for upgrading from one version of a Flash Player to the next can be measured in weeks, while a Flash Media Server can be set up in days; as such, the likely installed base of Flash Player 10.1 users capable of Fast Switching is higher now that it would have been under FMS 3.5.3.

FMS 4的出现 means that Adobe has almost finalized the move to its new ecosystem, with H.264 hardware acceleration for Macs as the only ecosystem piece still in beta.