Streaming media bandwidth concerns: Is using Flash better than WMP?

[Winchester]

If I use Flash MX 2004 Professional to "encode" videos will it utilize more or less bandwidth than if I was to do a straight stream of the media via .mov/wmv etc?

 

[DaveSimmons]

A Flash stream isn't any more efficient from being Flash, it's only be better if the video codec allows for equivalent quality at a lower bitrate than the codec you use for WMA.

For example if Flash offers divx/mpeg4 and you only have mpeg2 for wma, then the Flash stream could offer the same quality with less size / lower bitrate. If both are mpeg2 (or 4, or quicktime) then there will be no difference.