With the advent of Flash Communication Server MX (FCS), Macromedia believes that it's on the edge of a breakthrough in how people think about the Internet. FCS has been designed to provide web developers with the means to add polished interactive audio and video features to their sites, the sort of features that users have come to expect. Naturally, the process of efficiently integrating rich media into applications, web sites, and web content is a complex one, to say the least. That's where Programming Flash Communication Server factors in. As the foremost reference on FCS, it helps readers understand how FCS can facilitate:

• Video on demand

• Live webcasts

• Video chat and messaging

• Shared desktop conferences

• Live auctions

• Interactive whiteboard presentations

• Workflow collaboration

• Multi-user games

Programming Flash Communication Server not only explains how to use the pre-built FCS components to construct a simple application, it also explains the architecture so that developers can program custom components to make even more advanced applications. In addition, the book explains how to truly optimize performance, and talks about considerations for networked applications as well as the media issues pertaining to FCS. Programming Flash Communication Server gives developers a sorely needed leg up on this potentially intimidating technology. It lets users develop cool web applications ranging from direct dating experiences with real-time video, to pre-recorded corporate presentations, to news services with video and audio, and much more. At last, the ability to build web sites with rich interactive features--minus the complex downloads and installation hassles--is a reality. And now, with Programming Flash Communication Server from O'Reilly by your side, you can do more quickly and easily than you ever dreamed possible.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 13 Ratings

Good Job - 2008-01-01
Reviewer Rating:
If you want to understand programming the Flash Communication Server and it's capabilities this is a good place to start.

Still good for Flash Media Server 2 - 2007-04-11
Reviewer Rating:
Although I'm using Flash Media Server 2, this book is still highly relevant as not much has changed. The core objects and language is the same so I would not hesitate to recommend it for anyone looking to use FMS.

Only good resource I've found on this subject - 2006-11-08
Reviewer Rating:
This book is all about the design of applications using Macromedia's Flash Communication Server MX. FCS MX enables the building of media-rich web applications by taking care of the basic tasks required in the networking of the applications. Thus, you can focus on the application itself rather than worrying about low-level communication details.

Since this book is concerned with situations where multiple Flash applications will be executing on the same server simultaneously, there is going to be considerable effort involved in coordinating events, which is addressed by this book. You should already have FCS installed and running on your server and you should also have Flash MX available on the client. The following is description of the book by chapter:

Chapter 1, Introducing the Flash Communication Server - Acts as an introduction to FCS and an overview of the whole book.

Chapter 2, Communication Components - How the FlashCom communication components encapsulate commonly needed features such as chat, video recording and playback, bandwidth control,and user configuration. These components implement many basic building blocks for your application.

Chapter 3, Managing Connections - This chapter covers connections in more depth past the SimpleConnect component, including how to write custom code to handle various changes in the connection status as well as different errors.

Chapter 4, Applications, Instances, and Server-Side ActionScript - This chapter describes how to write Server-Side ActionScript and work with the objects that control application instances and the Flash movies that connect to them.

Chapter 5, Managing Streams - Offers a somewhat oversimplified but complete example that shows the basic steps in publishing one live stream and subscribing to a second.

Chapter 6, Camera and Microphone - This chapter explains how to use both the Microphone and Camera classes to record live streams. These classes are at the heart of most communication applications involving multimedia.

Chapter 7, Media Preparation and Delivery - This chapter covers many details for compressing and streaming audio and video.

Chapter 8, Shared Objects - This chapter starts an entirely new subject - shared objects, which provide a mechanism for the transmission of data between client and server.

Chapter 9, Remote Methods - This chapter also shows how to broadcast method calls to every movie and application instance connected to a shared object or stream, or send them to and from individual movies using RMI.

Chapter 10, Server Management API - Discusses the Server Management API and its applications, including monitoring a FlashCom Server, gathering statistics on application instances, and managing the log streams.

Chapter 11, Flash Remoting - Demonstrates how Flash Remoting can be used to add data connectivity to FlashCom applications. Flash Remoting can access web services, server-side scripts, CGI applications, XML files, or the local filesystem with the help of an application server such as ColdFusion.

Chapter 12, ColdFusion MX and FlashCom - Teaches some specifics involved in using Flash Remoting with ColdFusion MX and FlashCom. There are some practical working examples shown that demonstrate how you can leverage the benefits of Flash Remoting in conjunction with FlashCom.

Chapter 13, Building Communication Components - This is the first step in building complete applications, and is demonstrated through an extensive example.

Chapter 14, Understanding the Macromedia Component Framework - How to modify an existing component and how to create a new one. Also discusses server-side framework code and its core features and data structures.

Chapter 15, Application Design Patterns and Best Practices - Describes some of the best practices available to application developers. This chapter provides some useful design options, patterns, and best practices that will help you build better applications.

Chapter 16, Building Scalable Applications - Deals with building multi-instance and multiserver applications that don't bog down as the number of client connections increases.

Chapter 17, Network Performance, Latency, Concurrency - Traditional network design issues affect FCS also.

Chapter 18, Securing Applications - Specifically this chapter examines the three A's of security - Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting.

This is a great reference. - 2006-03-16
Reviewer Rating:
Excellent book, stuffed of examples very well explained, easy to read and to understand, essential for who desires initiate or even though to profound itself studies on FlashCom.
Obligator reference in projects involving FlashCom, either for fast consultations and advanced tasks.
Excellent approach of subjects as Design patterns and security, yonder a perfect demonstration about audio, video and much more.

A necessity for the bookshelf... - 2006-03-02
Reviewer Rating:
If you're a developer looking into real-time server communication using Adobe Flash, this book is a must-have. It guides you thru various levels of application development in an easy to understand format, and provides well documented pieces of code to assist you in the learning process of putting together your project:

Topics covered include:

- learning about components and how to use them
- establishing and managing client connections
- publishing live and recorded streams
- local communication with clients
- remote communication with outside applications

The book also shows how to build and integrate your own custom components, and how to scale your application using the components that you've created. Other highlights include information on how to use shared objects and server management API, as well as ways to improve both design and performance.

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