WAX files are just pointers — just XML documents that point to other files — and the files they point to are WMA files, which Flash doesn’t support. I suppose you could use the WAX format (that particular arbitrary XML structure) and have it point to MP3s instead. In that case, you’d have to load that WAX file as you would any other XML document and parse it to locate the actual file names.

In your ns.play() line, you’re asking the NetStream instance to play an XML file. It can’t, so it sounds like your operating system is doing the best it can with the requested file. Instead, you need that parameter to point to a Flash-compatible audio file. Actually, this shouldn’t be an audio file at all: it needs to be a video file!

If you want to build an audio player, you should be using the Sound class … you can omit NetConnection, NetStream, and Video altogether.

I found your blog very interesting. In fact i have a similar kind of requirement where i want to develop an audio player in flash that can play .wax files.
The url of the file goes like this:
http://[sitename]/[filename].wax

and my code goes like this:
var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect(null);
var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc);
videoPlayer.attachVideo(ns);
ns.play(”http://[sitename]/[filename].wax”);

Just tried out the same code that i saw above.
This audiostream url when opened in browser, plays the song in the system default player.
But its not working.
Can you help me out?

Regards,
Nisha

Check out this article, “How to Use Flash Video (FLV) Cue Points.” That should give you a good start, if not meet your needs entirely. Write back in a comment for that article if you have specific questions after reading and experimenting.

I want to use curPoint in my FLVPlayer in Action script 2 . Could you suggest me how can i use it as well as handle the event for the same.

Regards
Animesh

Thanks for the prompt reply.

But, we require IIS to be set up in the destination machine if we want to use the http instead of UNC, that is almost not possible in my scenario.

For now, we have decided to copy the files temporarily to the local folder and clean up when done playing locally.

once again, Thanks for your prompt reply.

Cheers.

I have read your loading external flv file, but i want to a continuous play ie in loop.

For that, you need to detect the end of the video and instruct the FLV to seek to the beginning. You can see several approaches in “How to Determine the Completion of a Flash Video (FLV) File (AS2),” but in a nutshell (for non-FLVPlayback usage) you’ll write an event handler for the NetStream.onStatus event.

var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect(null);
var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc);
videoPlayer.attachVideo(ns);
ns.play("externalVideo.flv");

ns.onStatus = function(evt:Object):Void {
  if (evt.code == "NetStream.Play.Stop") {
    this.seek(0);
  }
};

To John …

At first I had the same problem as a few other of the comments on here - audio, but no video. I changed the instance name from ‘videoplayer’ to ‘vid_player’ and now I get both.

By using videoplayer (all lowercase), you might have been tapping, by coincidence, into a reserved word. That happens to me every now and then, it’s frustrating because generally speaking, you can name a variable whatever you like, as long as you adhere to the usual caveats (not punctuation other than $ and _, no starting a variable name with a number, etc.).

One more thing - did you ever solve this problem?

Quick question: is there a way to add some sort of listener in AS to see when the FLV is finished and send the playhead on to the next frame? Some kind of if/else statement?

Wow, that was a long time ago! I do remember Mark’s question, and in all this time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the onStatus approach — the one I just suggested to Sumantra — is the easiest way to go. (I hinted at that to Mark, way back when, but was more comfortable at the time with the solution I ended up posted to the link in my previous reply. Unlike my suggestion to Sumantra, you wouldn’t invoke seek() in that event handler. Instead, you would invoke MovieClip.play(), MovieClip.gotoAndPlay(), or the like, in place of this.seek(0).

To Joseph …

I am currently trying to find a way to auto load a FLV into a swf from an XML document.

I haven’t yet written a blog tutorial on loading FLVs from XML, but the good thing about the process is, once you learn it, you can reuse the same principle for any sort of file. There’s nothing special about XML in relation to FLVs versus MP3s versus JPGs. To an extent, you could even start by listing out your FLVs in an array, then setting up a variable to count through the indexes of that array. In terms of the suggestions in my replies to John and Sumatra, you could increment that counter variable at the end of each video, like this:

// declared earlier
var counter:Number = 0;
var videos:Array = new Array("a.flv", "b.flv", "c.flv");

// then the standard NetConnection/NetStream code ...

// then the onStatus event handler
ns.onStatus = function(evt:Object):Void {
  if (evt.code == "NetStream.Play.Stop") {
    counter++;
    ns.play(videos[counter]);
  }
};

Of course, doing it that way means the counter would eventually exceed the number of elements in the array. You could work around that with an if statement:

ns.onStatus = function(evt:Object):Void {
  if (evt.code == "NetStream.Play.Stop") {
    counter++;
    if (counter < videos.length - 1) {
      ns.play(videos[counter]);
    }
  }
};

For XML, it would be similar enough (and would depend, of course, on the arrangement of XML nodes you decide to use). In the case of XML, you would (somewhere along the line) have a series of, say, <video> tags, and your counter variable would loop through those in the same way.

Does that help get you started?

To Jan …

I am trying to load my flv, (it’s working) send it to a frame label after it is finished playing. the colde I am using does not go to the next frame, can you see what I am doing wrong?

The culprit is this line here:

video1.addEventListener(VideoEvent.COMPLETE, onPlaybackComplete);

… because you’re associating your event handler with an instance named video1, instead of the variable name you actually give your FLVPlayback instance (flvPlayer).

To Balaji …

I’m afraid I haven’t used UNC paths in client work, so I don’t have any personal insight into why you might be seeing the issues you’re seeing. I have heard from people who do use (or who have used) UNC paths successfully, but I don’t know if they were using IIS, Apache, or some other software.

Sorry I can’t help you on this one! If there’s any way you can route that path through an HTTP address, that’s worth a shot, for sure.

I hardcoded the path in the code as

flvurl = “\\\\SYS02\\Transfer\\S2.flv”;
flv.contentPath = flvurl;

even in this scenario, it works fine when access the SWF locally (c:\player.swf), but not when accessed in Webserver (http://SYS01/mySite/player.swf).

Any clue?

Cheers.

I am new to Flash development. I have created a flash player. It was working fine with I tested locally (by double clicking the file in the folder)

I have used both
c:\Player.swf?flvurl=S1.flv
c:\Player.swf?flvurl=\\SYS02\transfer\S2.flv

both were working fine.

When I uploaded the file in IIS server (SYS01), it stops playing. It plays the
http://SYS01/mySite/Player.swf?flvurl=S1.flv
but not
http://SYS01/mySite/Player.swf?flvurl=\\SYS02\transfer\S2.flv

Player.swf and S1.flv are in the same folder.
S2.flv is in Machine SYS02, in which SYS01 user is administrator. The shared folder is given full access to Everyone.

in SYS02 machine’s Administrative tool -> computer management -> Open session and file, i can see the S2 file being accessed whenever I access the site. But It’s not playing.

Can someone tell me why?

This is quite urgent for me.
Please mail me if you have any answer.

Many Thanks.

Cheers,
Bala
balaji.mk@gmail.com

//actionscript 3.0
this.stop();

import fl.video.*;

var flvPlayer:FLVPlayback = new FLVPlayback();
addChild(flvPlayer);

flvPlayer.source = “http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/video/water.flv”;

video1.addEventListener(VideoEvent.COMPLETE, onPlaybackComplete);

function onPlaybackComplete(ev: VideoEvent):void {
gotoAndStop(”alice”);
}

[/code]