Influxis Flash Media Hosting Unveils TV Station 2
Influxis have released what could become an industry changing Flash media application – TV Station 2. Building on the success of the original TV Station, the second version of the app is billed as a major upgrade that will allow Flash developers to build their own online television network.
Richard Blakely, CEO of Influxis, commented, “Our new TVStation application gives our clients the power to run their own 24-hour television network without the overhead and capital cost traditionally associated with broadcast video.”
Influxis says the new application can stream any combination of video content, You Tube HD video, images and live audio streaming while simultaneously allowing users to chat to each other in real time. Flash developers can stream live, high definition video directly from Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder – no need for a plug-in API.
Alternative to Flash Media Server – Red5
If you’re looking for an open source alternative to the official Adobe Flash Media Server you’ll be glad to know there are a number of options available.
One alternative is Red5, an open source Flash media server that’s written in Java. The project is continually updated and currently supports streaming Flash audio and video in the form of FLV, h264, AAC, and MP3. Recording of client streams is also available in FLV format.
Other Flash goodies include Shared Objects, Live Stream Publishing and Flash remoting in the form of AMF (Action Message Format).
Wowza Flash Media Server
If the features of regular Flash media server hosting just aren’t enough for you consider the Wowza Media Server.
As well as costing less the Adobe’s Flash Media Server – up to 75% in some cases – it’ll also add support for the iPhone / iPod Touch, Silverlight and Quicktime to your Flash media.
The Wowza Server Developer Edition is free and allows up to 10 concurrent connections for unlimited streaming to Flash (RTMP), RTSP/RTP and MPEG-TS clients, with a limited time duration streaming to HTTP clients.
Full Wowza server editions start from $65 a month and volume discounting is available for those really large Flash media server hosting needs.