Red5 is the open source, reverse-engineered version of Adobe's proprietary Flash Media Server. It's written to completely mimic the Flash Media Server, so that the Flash running on the end user's machine doesn't know the difference.

We use Red5 to organize and manage conference rooms, interface with VoiceRD, forward video streams to other ConnectRD users and convert Flash audio to a VoIP compatible format.

Getting a Flash client to talk to a standards-compatible VoIP server is no easy task. Theres lots, and lots of people who have been trying to do it recently, but it's all proprietary. Our open source solution is derived from a plugin to the venerable Openfire IM server.

The potential uses for an easy-to-use, well documented Flash-to-Conventional phones solution are huge. And this technology could revolutionize audio communication on the web.

ConnectRD interfaces with traditional phone networks using a VoIP server like Asterisk. It is compatible with most any VoIP server derived from Asteris, but we use VoiceRD, a powerful LDAP enabled version.

We use Adobe's Flex to create an easy to use Flash front end for users. Flash allows us to be sure that the user experience is consistent across all computing platforms, and that user's will not need to download additional software as Flash is found on some 97% of browsers[1].