bandwidth detection in 4.1 player

Yes please, I'm also keen to find this information. All I've found is information saying it's in version 4.1 but nothing more. This is the last unknown for me to de-risk before I upgrade a site from a 3.15 version of the player.

(4.x is looking fantastic by the way, so much easier to interact with using JavaScript, fantastic skinning abilities and the documentation is also a big improvement IMHO - I've already achieved so much in a couple of days with very little JS experience.)

Please forgive me for bumping this topic but I really need to find out how to use this feature ASAP. I can no longer find the reference to it being in version 4.1 on the wiki, I think the page in question has since been edited.

I'm hoping it will be similar to before where you have your file names with bit-rate suffixes and all you need to do is turn on bandwidth checking with a particular flashvar/series of flashvars.

I love the sound of mid-stream bandwidth checking rather than a single check before playback, I just need to know how to use it. :)

Cheers.

A bit frustrating that we can't get a straight, simple answer on this one.

Bandwidth checking was listed on the Wiki as being in version 4.1 of the player and now it's not. Why? Is it in fact not a feature yet? If that's the case then it's all I need to know to progress things (well, put them on standby I guess, till it is a feature).

There's indeed no bandwidth detection in the 4.1 player. The 4.2 player will have:
* Automatic bandwidth detection if you use Flash MediaServer (it'll be available through a Model.META event).
* At least one plugin that allows you to do a switch between low/high bandwidth, kinda like vimeo.com is doing it with their HD on/off.

If there are people interested in having additional functionality, I'd love to hear so. Please note that automatic bandwidth switching for non-streaming servers will likely annoy your audience: the entire file has to be re-downloaded.

Note that Adobe is working on a new version of their Flash Media Serve (3.5), in which seamless, automatic bandwidth switching is possible. When that is released, I'll definetily take a look at it, and likely implement.

Many, many thanks for the reply! :)

Is there any documentation about how to use the bandwidth detection that is in 4.2 that you can point me towards please?

Is there no way the good old '100kb JPEG download' could return, for use with progressive downloads and be implemented along side mid-stream bandwidth detection for use with streaming servers? Would that not be better than nothing?

I notice that "bandwidth toggling" is listed in the roadmap for 4.3 - is this going to be purely manual where the viewer selects from a "high quality" or "low quality" version of a video or what? What will be the difference between this function and the plugin you mention that is available for 4.2?

I have noticed this thread with a request for a particular method of bandwidth detection: http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?thread=13079 but don't fully understand exactly what they're requesting. :D

It would also be very good to know where I can find this plugin as well, I'm looking on: http://www.longtailvideo.com/AddOns/?category=plugins - is this the correct place?

Many thanks!

OK, I'm starting to see how this can be used after viewing the 'tracecall' data. This is great stuff. I'd like to ask a few (hopefully intelligent questions) if I may:

1) It looks like the first time the event is fired is about 1.5 seconds into watching a video, does that mean that I have to set the player up to load a default video (as in a particular bandwidth version of the video) and then change this if necessary, depending on the first bandwidth check reading? This is the only way that I can see it working as you have to create the player first before the event is fired, unless I'm misunderstanding?

2) How often is the event fired? If the answer is "check your FMS3 documentation" then that's fine. The reason I'm asking is that "bandwidth detection" is turned off in the settings for my FMS3 so am a little confused as to what exactly is giving these bandwidth readings.

Basically if its frequency is somehow controlled by the player then that's fine, otherwise I was wondering if I needed to produce some code that would ensure that a video switch would not take place if the last switch took place x seconds ago - I don't want the switch to take place too often or the whole point of bandwidth detection will be lost as it'll end up giving viewers with changing bandwidth an even worse experience than if it wasn't in place at all.

3) How will the facilities in 4.3 change all of this? I see talk of both automatic and manual bandwidth toggling - It's the automatic one that I'm interested in. Will it basically achieve the same thing that I'm trying to achieve but without the need to produce your own JavaScript to control it all?

As always, many, many thanks!

I don't know if it's something I'm (not) doing but I'm finding that sometimes the first time the event is triggered it is returning the bandwidth as 'undefined'?

Scrap that last comment, fairly sure it was something I was doing!

Jeroen,
Wow, you mean on the fly bandwidth switching with FMS? Wouldn't we need to encode the videos using different bit rates? How would that work with v4.2? Sounds very exciting!

I'm really interested in getting something like this working. We're already using the HD plugin to allow users to switch quality and we're on a hosted (for us) Flash Server 3 account...

But what do I need to do to make it auto-detect?