streaming

The SWF format supports a type of streaming, but it's not quite the same as video streaming.

In an SWF, which is actually a tagged format file, the streaming works by virtue of the fact that anything which is currently playing in a SWF file must only depend on data that has already been loaded into the player.

Here's how it is explained on one website: "This ordering of tags is how the SWF file format supports streaming. The rule is that a given tag should only depend on tags that come before it. A tag should never depend on a tag that comes later in the file."  http://www.the-labs.com/MacromediaFlash/SWF-Spec/SWFfileformat.html

So, if your definition of "streaming" is that a certain percentage of the file is downloaded (e.g. via a preloader) and then the file begins to play while the rest of the file is downloading in the background...then SWF is a streaming format.

SWF files are usually not streamed. Video files (FLV, F4V etc.) are streamed.

Why are you asking? Is your output swf so big that you need to deploy it using streaming services?

/Michael

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