[seyduna]

I'm very curious at this point, if it's possible to directly stream a local mp3 file to an audience using Flash Player & Flash Media Server (through the browser).

Thinking at a higher level, this should be possible ---- so if it can make a live stream using the microphone output, why shouldn't it be able to stream an mp3 sitting at the hard drive of the user?

I don't know, maybe Flash doesn't have such built-in functionality, but there could be a work around / hack to make this happen in a not so complicated way? (using only the browser). (i.e. making flash think that mp3 music output is the microphone output ----- I totally have no idea how)

But an important thing is that, the stream should be live. i.e. starts only with a short lag -a couple of seconds at most- after the user picks the mp3 file.

I'd say putting the file on the server and then streaming wouldn't work, as it will take a while to upload the mp3 file. It could be OK though if the server was able to stream the file before the upload ends, i.e. start the stream as soon as user starts the upload.

But I think the ideal solution would not invovle uploading the file to the server. This is b/c i'm also looking for a mixer functionality. i.e. user mixing multiple mp3 tracks and the microphone output at the same time, in which their combined audio output will be streamed.

Answers will be extremely appreciated.