Advantages of streaming Flash video

Streaming Flash video has many advantages over downloaded video as well as other streaming formats:

• Great support across browsers and operating systems
  With browser penetration for the Flash plugin above 95%, almost anyone who can browse the Web can watch streaming Flash video without installing any new software or plugins. Your developers can expect consistent media experiences across operating systems and browsers.
  
  
• Instant On
  Streaming Flash video starts playing instantly when the page is loaded or the play button is selected. Streaming Flash starts playing faster than streaming Real Video, Windows Video, or QuickTime.
  
  
• Advanced Seek
  Viewers can jump immediately to any part of the video regardless of the length of the video or whether it has been fully downloaded. Streaming Flash video buffers almost instantly, faster than streaming Real Video, Windows Video, or QuickTime.
  
  
• Content Security
  Streaming Flash Media is not cached by Web browsers, and your Web pages do not link to it directly, so your videos are never saved to users computers. Pages on non-BU servers can't embed your videos in them either. Unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted streaming Flash video content is very unlikely.
  
  
• High-quality Video
  The new Flash 8 codec, now widely supported by browsers, offers superior video quality at smaller file sizes.
  
  
• Programmable connection and delivery control
  Flash developers can use ActionScript programming to fine-tune how their video is streamed. For instance, you can serve different quality streams, or automatically calculate an amount of video to buffer before playback, based on the viewer's connection speed.
  
  
• Customizable player skins - and more
  Flash developers can build custom players that reflect your site's design or that have unique functionality.
  
  
• Rich Media
  Your streaming Flash video can be just one component of a Flash presentation containing text, still images, animation - even interactivity - all synchronized using Flash's mature timeline model.