OK, I'm convinced. After spending the last month on a Flash video project, I'm never using QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or RealPlayer on a web site again. I created a single FLV file using Sorenson Squeeze 4.0, built a custom Flash video player, and the darn thing works on every browser and platform I can get my hands on. So far, I've tested it on IE6, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera. On OS X, it works on Firefox, IE, Netscape, and Safari.

Prior to this, I was using a ColdFusion page that sniffs the user's browser and platform and generates the appropriate code to embed QuickTime, Windows Media, or RealPlayer (assuming the user already has one of the plug-ins installed). That's so 20th century!

To spur the revolution, I've begun a three-part series called "Creating a Custom Flash Video (FLV) Player" for Community MX. Part 1, which was released today, is about building a custom Flash video player using the MediaDisplay component. You'll see how easy it is to create a full-featured Flash video player that you can use on your web sites, complete with play/pause, FLV download progress bar, volume slider, and real-time scrubbing. There's even an external XML configuration file.

Part 2, due in a week or so, shows how to create the same player using Flash's built-in NetConnection and NetStream classes. This results in a much smaller SWF file (2K versus 58K).

Part 3 rounds out the series by explaining how to convert the custom Flash video player into a resuable Flash component.

If you've been curious about how to get started with Flash video, this is the series for you. I hope you enjoy it.