Customers can now use Adobe Media Server and multicast or unicast to deliver live video events in a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment. To deliver multicast or unicast live video streams within a VDI environment, the media stream should be sent directly from the media source to the endpoints, bypassing the remote desktops. The Flash URL Redirection feature supports this capability by intercepting and redirecting the ShockWave Flash (SWF) file from the remote desktop to the client endpoint.

The Flash content is then displayed using the clients' local Flash media players.

Streaming Flash content directly from the Adobe Media Server to the client endpoints lowers the load on the datacenter ESXi host, removes the extra routing through the datacenter, and reduces the bandwidth required to simultaneously stream Flash content to multiple client endpoints.

The Flash URL redirection feature uses a JavaScript that is embedded inside an HTML Web page by the Web page administrator. Whenever a remote desktop user clicks on the designated URL link from within a Web page, the JavaScript intercepts and redirects the SWF file from the remote desktop session to the client endpoint. The endpoint then opens a local Flash Projector outside of the remote desktop session and plays the media stream locally.

To configure Flash URL Redirection, you must set up your HTML Web page and your client devices.