Sorry I have thought of just 2 more questions (before you start to invoice me for consultancy!)
1. re- the influxis site would you host the whole web solution (files and pages etc) with them or just the files that you want to stream and your website points to the influxis servers.
2. I have looked for streaming hosting plans with ISP's and can't seem to find much on offer (apart from big sites like REAL, or Quicktime) Do you know of any other value for money hosting providers that provide this service ?

Thanks again, your help has been really useful!!

Influxis only host the .flv and the flash script files. You then host the flash player on your site. The flash player connects to influxis and streams the video and sound back.

Streaming media is very very expensive and requires top spec servers, everyone now is moving to Flv because it is cheaper and more common on computers. Quicktime and Realplayer will require people to download or update before you can watch a video. And those files can be huge! Flash comes as standard on most browsers. Windows Media, Quicktime and Real Player hosting is very hard to find, I dont know of any hosts that do it. Take windows for example, nothing windows give out is cheap!

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Irish Developer | New York Hotels | Red Sox Fan | Red Sox Fan Blog | Car Hire Cork Airport

oh no,
I am really confused now!
I thought i was talking about the same thing as you.
Streaming media is different from using flash media server???

Well flash media server can handle chat rooms & webcam chat as well as video. So yea it would be different.

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Irish Developer | New York Hotels | Red Sox Fan | Red Sox Fan Blog | Car Hire Cork Airport