Influxis Flash Media Interactive Server 3.5 Hosting Specialists

In a nutshell, Adobe Flash Media Server allows people to interact with your website in rich and unique ways. They can view high-quality videos delivered to them in the cleanest form possible. They can chat in real-time with their webcams, give live presentations, and view events live as they are being broadcasted. Of course, this is only the beginning of the limitless possibilities that Flash Media Server can provide you and your clientele.

With Flash Media Server, your website can transmit, receive and share audio, video, and other types of data in real-time. Data is delivered to your users through the Flash Player interface in smooth, streaming format. Flash Media Server applications are freely customizable, can be changed to match the look and feel of your website, and work across all platforms. The vast majority of internet enabled PCs have Adobe Flash Player installed, making Flash streaming extremely accessible.

Flash Media Interactive Server allows you to deliver rich media content (like video) into your web page in the highly flexible Flash format. This means that your user interfaces can be customized, integrated with the rest of your website, and contain an endless number of features.

Most other streaming services only allow you to stream video through a predetermined player that is not customizable at all. Flash allows you to create custom, interactive interfaces. With access to server side scripting and Shared Objects a variety of applications can be created, such as video chats and games.

The Flash Player is installed in over 99% of internet-enabled PCs, making it the most accessible format for streaming. Unlike other players, Flash is platform independent and compatibility issues are almost nonexistent.

The installation size of the Flash Player is extremely small when compared with other players, and is a simple, turnkey ActiveX control. There are no large, complicated installers for users to download. These are only a few of the reasons why Flash Media Server is superior to other forms of streaming.

At Influxis we offer shared and dedicated Adobe Flash Media Server 3.5 Hosting. For shared hosting, we provide clients with an RTMP connection path on one of our servers. Users will connect to your Influxis Account through the .swf file located on either your web server or one of our pre-built applications. After making your application web accessible, our Flash Media Servers will deliver your Flash Video/Audio which is located on our servers through the RTMP connection to your application making your content accessible to your website visitors.

Our Prebuilt Applications and our Video Player Builder will automatically generate a .swf file with an .html file embedded. It will also automatically integrate the RTMP connection path for your account. All you need to do is upload the provided files to your web server. We also offer an alternative feature which allows you to simply copy and paste the embed code into any web page, or simpler yet, we produce a URL for you with the pre-built application already in place and you can easily link to it.

We do not offer any web hosting. We specialize in Adobe Flash Media Server hosting. With Influxis, simply integrate any Flash application into your website and keep your current web host. There is absolutely no need to switch web hosting companies, change DNS information, or configure anything on your web server. You can utilize Flash Media Server technology from any website on the web.

Yes, our service works from anywhere outside the U.S. In addition to our United States based servers, we also have servers in Europe and South America. You can choose your server location upon signup or email support@influxis.com with your request.

Simultaneous Connections are Flash Media Server client connections, and they determine the number of simultaneous users that are able connect to your Influxis account at any one given time. 10 Connections = 10 Simultaneous Users Max. However, if a user is connected to more than one instance of an application or connected to multiple applications, these connections each count toward the total number of simultaneous connections.

Connections are the only hard limit on your account. If you have 10 connections available and 10 users connected, if another user tries to connect, they will be rejected until one of the first 10 users disconnects.

Total amount of connections is counted for your whole account. Connections by any of your applications will count towards the maximum connection limit.

Streaming Bandwidth is the rate at which data is passed from the client to the server and the server to the client. Smooth video, clear sound, and delay time are all factors determined by your Streaming Bandwidth. Generally, it is good to have a streaming bandwidth of 768 kbps if you are streaming video. A higher number also equals a higher quality stream.

General bandwidth scale:
56k modem = 33 kilobits per second up / 33 kbps down
DSL = 128 kbps up / 256 kbps down
Cable =256 kbps up / 512 kbps down
T1 = 1.5 megabits per second up / 1.5 Mbps down

To test your bandwidth connection speed you can use one of the many tests online, like the following: http://www.speedtest.net/

The Flash Media Server gives you the ability to store objects on the server, such as chat history, recorded audio streams, and recorded video streams. The size of these files may vary depending on the length and encoding rate of the recorded stream. If your applications will be used for streaming large video files or will permit heavy recording then you may want a plan that provides more disk space.

Exceeding your disk space quota means that you have too much data stored on your account. Overage charges are charged at the rate of$0.025/MB of disk space over your account plan.

Of course, you can always upgrade before the next month, or clear old and unneeded files from your account to avoid overage charges. You will receive emails to inform you when you exceed your disk space quota allowing you the chance to upgrade first.

Bandwidth transfer is the amount of data transferred to your users through your account, by video, audio, text, or other streaming. If your application involves a prerecorded stream that only pushes data "down" from the server to the end user, then it may use less bandwidth transfer (depending on the video's bitrate) compared to a live stream that is pushing and pulling data "up" and "down" between the server and end users. Also consider whether your application features one-to-many or many-to-many functionality because this not only factors into the necessary number of connections but also provides an idea of how much bandwidth will be used.

Exceeding the allotted amount of bandwidth transfer for your account means that your users have transferred more total data than your quota allows for. Overage charges are $1.00 per GB.

Of course, you can always upgrade before the next month to avoid overage charges. You will receive emails to inform you when you exceed your bandwidth transfer quota allowing you the chance to upgrade first.

Basic formula for one-to-many applications

For one-to-many applications, this basic formula provides a ballpark figure to work with: how fast (average bitrate, in kilobits per second, of the broadcast) how long (average amount of time each user utilizes the application) total number of connections expected per day

÷ 8,388,608 (to convert kilobits to gigabytes)
x 30 days per month
Example:
300 kbps
x 60 seconds
x 100 user connections per day
÷ 8,388,608
x 30 days
= 6.44 GB per month

Basic formula for many-to-many applications

For many-to-many applications, consider the exponential factor as each user connects to all other users. A five-user many-to-many application would require each user to send one stream while receiving four other streams. For five users, this would total 25 simultaneous connections. Assuming that every user watches all other users for 30 minutes per day, here's a formula you can use:

how fast (average bitrate, in kilobits per second, of each user's broadcast)
x how long (average amount of time, in seconds, each user utilizes the application)
x square of the total number of user connections per day
÷ 8,388,608 (to convert kilobits to gigabytes)
x 30 days per month
Example:
300 kbps
x (30 minutes x 60 seconds)
x 52 user connections per day
÷ 8,388,608
x 30 days
= 48 GB per month

No, Influxis FMS hosting includes all licensing required to commercially release your application. This is one of the benefits of our hosting service, as an out-of-the-box Flash Media Interactive Server 3.5 license will cost you up to $4,500 USD.

The Analysis Plan is mainly for testing non-video applications or for a simple text chat application. It is a basic setup for those who want to learn what Flash Media Server is capable of doing. You can sign also sign up for the Voltage Plan, which will allow you to test a little more comfortably. With 512 KBPS of Streaming Bandwidth, it will allow you to view videos and live feeds with reduced choppiness.

The Voltage Plan is a step up from Analysis. If your application is a multiplayer game, and will primarily use graphics instead of video, the Voltage plan is a good choice because you will probably use very little bandwidth. You need FMS mostly for processing and sharing data. If you are streaming music, you will need at most around 128 kbps of streaming bandwidth. To be safe, a Voltage plan gives you increased simultaneous connections and more Monthly Transfer than an analysis plan. If you would like extra assurance of the plan needed for your specific application, feel free to call our Sales Technicians at 661-775-3936 or email support@influxis.com.

Nitrous Plan is a step up from Voltage and is used for mid scale applications. It is commonly used for small video and audio chat sessions and mid scale streaming video. It's a good start and you can always increase your plan as you gain more users. Analysis or Voltage will not be sufficient for streaming video - you will need a plan like Nitrous to accommodate higher bandwidth usage. Also consider how much disk space you will need to store your videos. You may always use our custom plan builder to appropriate the perfect mix of server resources required for your application needs.

The Rage Plan is for a hardcore application that needs a lot of resources. This is usually meant for full blown chat applications or small to mid-scale broadcasts. Please note that live streaming requires a larger appropriation of bandwidth transfer than prerecorded video due to the amount of data being constantly transmitted between the server and end users..

For events lasting from a few hours up to one week, we can set you up with a large account for a one-time payment. Please contact Influxis Sales at sales@influxis.com for pricing and details.

Please note, event quotes must be requested and approved at least 2 business days prior to your event. Payment for events must be received no later than 3:00 PM Pacific Time on the last business day prior to your event. Please see our Service Agreement for more information.

Not to worry! We usually recommended that you start off with a basic plan, like the Nitrous or Rage plan. Once your website is launched, you can find out how much bandwidth you are actually using. We provide bandwidth logs and live monitoring tools so you can tailor your plan to real-world usage. When it comes time to upgrade, you can do so instantly through the Influxis Wizard.

The Prebuilt Applications are ready-made turnkey applications that allow you to use the features of Flash Media Server. There is an audio/video chat room, an application for live presentations, an application that allows you to broadcast live video, a TVStation application, and much more. For a full list with features, please visit the Apps page.

The Prebuilt Applications are included absolutely free when you sign up for an account. There are no extra hidden charges. The Prebuilt Applications even include the source .fla files for custom modification.

Your account is active immediately. Within seconds you should receive a welcome letter via email with your login information which will enable you to begin creating your application directory folders for your RTMP connections.

You can make changes to your account anytime through the Influxis Wizard or by sending an email to support@influxis.com. There are no penalties for upgrading, and your settings will take place immediately. If you have any overages on your account, all you have to do is upgrade before the next month to an adequate plan, and you will not be charged for those overages. When you upgrade, you will only be charged the prorated amount or difference between the two plans.

The minimum service agreement we accept is one month for new signups and 10 days for upgrades unless you are an existing customer running an event. Please note however that we are contract-free and you can upgrade at any time - you are not locked into a plan with specific settings.

Yes. You can reduce the monthly rate by prepaying in Quarterly or Annual installments. The discounts are 15% for Quarterly billing and 20% for Annual Billing.

You can choose your billing term during sign-up.

You can cancel your account anytime by logging in to the Influxis wizard and clicking "Modify Current Plan". Then click the "Cancel Account" button and follow the instructions. You may also cancel service by sending an email containing your account information and reason for cancellation to support@influxis.com.

Influxis accepts Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. We also accept bank transfer payments - please contact us for terms and conditions. We do not accept Paypal or other internet money transfer sites.

If you are having trouble with the signup sheet make sure:

• You are not using special characters
• Fill in all the areas of the document. If an area does not apply fill it in with "NA""
• If all else fails, please call us (661-775-3936) during business hours and we can set up an account for you manually over the phone.

RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol) is a specialized protocol that can only be used by Flash Media Server and accessed through Flash, as opposed to the HTTP protocol which regular web servers use. It establishes a persistent connection between the Flash Media Server and the end users which allows our servers to deliver audio, video, and other types of data in real time. Our Prebuilt Applications will integrate the connection into the application automatically when you download them, so there is no complicated setup required. If you would like to integrate your connection path into your actionscript code yourself, you can refer to the following example:

client_nc.connect("rtmp://influxis_id.rtmphost.com/application_name/instance_name")

An application is a .swf file that is embedded into an .html file onto your website. Our Prebuilt Applications will provide you with an .html file premade, but you can find out more information on how to integrate your application into an existing page here: Using Object and Embed Syntax.

Flash applications are made with the Flash authoring tool, and you can customize your own to use with your account. Applications also require the proper files to be set up on your account so that an application can connect to our servers correctly. Our Prebuilt Applications will set up all your Flash Media Server-side files automatically.

You can obtain more detailed information on our prebuilt applications by viewing the help files from within the Influxis Wizard, or by consulting the help documents included with each application. We can help guide you in the right direction if you have coding questions, and we do offer limited developmental support.

An ASC file is server-side actionscript file that relates to your Flash Media Server application. These files generally control or manage your persistent shared objects and communicate with the client side of your application.

No. When you download a Prebuilt Application from the Influxis Wizard, it will set everything up that is necessary and give you an already compiled and fully useable application to upload to your web server. This makes it easy and convenient to deploy Flash Media Server applications on your website. However, you can customize your applications using the Flash Authoring tool, as most of our Prebuilt Applications come with the source .fla files, but customization is not required.

You can upload your files using the Influxis Wizard File Manager system when you log in. This feature contains a range of options to make it easy to use your account. You can generate a stream path for your videos, or you can edit your main.asc files without having to download them first.

We can provide you with SFTP/FTP access to easily download/upload large files from our servers. Simply email a request to support@influxis.com for either SFTP or FTP access. This can take 1-3 business days for setup.

SFTP access complements the Influxis FMS Wizard for creating, managing and uploading/downloading your folders and files.

Please make sure to connect with SFTP through port 22. Additionally, to allow for proper functionality of the web downloader/uploader, ports 2809 and 2810 must be open.

To use SFTP, you will still need to use a FTP client. Here are several FTP clients depending on which platform you're on:

Mac Users:
For the Mac platform, you may try one these listed FTP clients:
Pure Mac: http://www.pure-mac.com/ftp.html
Filezilla: http://filezilla-project.org/download.php (free)
CyberDuck: http://cyberduck.ch/ (free)
Transmit: http://www.panic.com/transmit/(only $30; recommended by our developers using MAC) If you are using Safari as your browser and you experience any issues, try using an alternative browser such as Mozilla Firefox.

PC Users:
If you are on a Windows platform, you can try one the below FTP clients:
CuteFTP Professional: http://www.globalscape.com/cuteftppro/ (free 30-day trial)
WS_FTP Professional: http://www.wsftp.com/products/ws_ftp_professional/ (free 30-day trial)
SecureFX: http://www.vandyke.com/products/securefx/ (free 30-day trial period)
WinSCP: http://winscp.net/eng/download.php (free)
Filezilla: http://filezilla-project.org/download.php (free)
If you need any further assistance or have more specific questions, please contact support@influxis.com.

FMS (Flash Media Server) was built with security in mind so the server itself is very secure - users will not be able to "hack" into the data on your account. Streaming video is more secure than other types of delivery because the end user does not download the content to his or her computer. The end user only gets the bit of code necessary for that given moment of video that is on the screen at any given moment. This will guard your data since users will only have access to your videos through your website. Flash Media Server also offers encrypted delivery (RTMPE) which even further protects your content. Talk to our sales staff for more details.

You can set up a referring domain list so that only applications hosted on specified domains will be able to utilize your Flash Media Server connection. Referring domains protect you from unauthorized use of your bandwidth. Say for example that your Referring Domain is set to "thisdomain.com". If someone tries to host a flash application on "thatdomain.com" all connections from the latter domain will be rejected.

Flash Media server uses port 1935 as a default port to communicate with your application. If your users have this port disabled, Flash will automatically try to connect again through port 80. Port 80 is one of the main ports used for HTTP connections. This ensures that the vast majority of your users will be able to access your application without you having to tinker around with complicated compatibility settings.

If port 1935 is blocked then you will notice that most often a connection attempt will be rejected or the connection speed is very slow. This is because Flash is tunneling through port 80. If you suspect that your port is being blocked, you can use our port tester here.