Streaming flash videos
 

I'm a total newbie when it comes to streaming flash videos. My friend google told me a lot but I still have few questions :)

First.. why streaming videos are so popular? I always thought because of the fact that .flv files are much smaller than .wmv or other standard videos but from what I've seen - not. Most times they are 'only' 30% - 40% smaller.

Second.. I noticed there are some really cool .flv web players but they are not free for commercial use. So.. could you please recommed any? or maybe there are any free ones?

Thanks in advance

I've been meaning to play around with this one.
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player

I was wondering that too and also wondering about compatibility with various browsers, etc.

Thanks Cleo, the one you mentioned is actually the first I found.
I'm also considering
http://www.easyflv.com/, http://flowplayer.org/ and this one (I downloaded free version and did enjoy but couldn't find information if they offer paid full version without their ad on it)

I'm mostly interested in using a Flash player for playing non Flash files. Starting with Flash 9 you can use it to play h.264 files. So instead of the surfing having to install QuickTime to play a h.264 encoded movie it will play in a Flash player.

You've said it yourself. Even reduction of 30% on Your BW is a good thing when You have a huge traffic going to Your video files. Second part is the obvious popularity of YT and tube like porn places offering so much free stuff it hurts. As for player ...
great tool and pretty easy to use .... with a little php it can be turned into dreaded tube sites but in a small scale. I'm playing with it as we speak and added it a movie preview feature on one of my LL's.

Here's another vote for the JW player: it works great, is super simple and I've never heard of anyone being hassled for using it commercially. It used on quite a few sites including porn.com. Flowplayer has the advantage of being skinnable whichi from memory JW isn't.