jtara - 8:39 pm on Dec 13, 2007 (gmt 0)

Progressive download doesn't make downloading "slow", and switching to a streaming server won't help.

When used with a progressive-download client (e.g. any of the FLV video players written in Flash) the player should buffer a bit, and then start playing before the entire file is downloaded. There's no need to wait for the file to download before viewing.

All a streaming server does is give the client the ability to "index" into the video. For example, if the user moves the scroll bar to half-way through the video, with progressive download the player has to read the first 25MB of the file before it will start playing at the indexed position. With a video server, it will begin playing in the middle almost immediately.

But for most applications, the user won't see any difference.

The reason you aren't getting anywhere with rtmp:// on your server, is that first you'd have to download and install a streaming server on your site.