Video Breakthroughs

New version of Flash Media Server offers expanded, dynamic protocol support, including HTTP Live Streaming to iDevices, as well as DRM enhancements.

FMS 4.5's primary intent is to leave the heavy lifting of choosing which protocol to deliver in (RTMP, HTTP Dynamic Streaming, HLS, etc) to the server. FMS 4.5 can generate real-time repackaging of an mp4 file for both HTTP Dynamic Streaming and HLS, including automated segmentation of mp4 files into the specific fragmented mp4 (fMP4) segmentation required by various Android, iOS and other mobile devices.

In addition to single stream repackaging, FMS 4.5 will also automatically create multiple bitrate segmentations, for adaptive streaming, as well as manifest files in Apple's m3u8 format. Instead of the previous manual process of rewrapping, segmentation creation, and manifest files, FMS 4.5 promises the ability to automate these basic processes.

With a nod to digital rights management, FMS 4.5 will also include DRM based on the Flash Access DRM scheme. Rather than requiring a broadcaster to buy a full-blown Flash Access 3.0 server, however, there will be a limited version of Flash Access baked into FMS 4.5 to cover RMTPe (encrypted) and segment-level DRM (a key feature of fMP4, which separates the header information from each fragment). Adobe claims it is also enhancing DRM to cover iOS devices to a limited degree--a claim we'll explore when we get a chance to review Flash Access 3.0 and FMS 4.5 , as HLS is based on MPEG-2 Transport Stream, which has no inherent capacity for DRM within each packet.

RTMFP will be available on the FMIS, a change from Adobe's previous scenario of only allowing RTMFP on the Enterprise Server version.