Flash 10.1 will cut back on video hosting costs in two ways and I think a lot of major hosts will want to switch to using these new delivery methods as soon as possible, when most people on the web have Flash 10.1 installed and not 10.0 or earlier.

Traditionally the Flash Player has had to download an entire video over http at once, even parts the viewer doesn't watch. If someone doesn't watch the entire video then it's a waste of bandwidth for the host. Some sites have deliberately slowed video downloads so viewers who click off early aren't as likely to download the entire file, but it still happens.

With http dynamic streaming the video is sent only in chunks and stitched together by the player(NetStream.AppendBytes()). So if someone watches part of a video they will only download part of the video, guaranteed. The host doesn't have to use bandwidth throttling and it's even an improvement over RTMP streams because of the ability to have a larger buffer. RTMP streams can annoyingly skip if the viewer's download speed is too slow.

Flash 10.1 also makes it possible to have a "zero cost" video site with P2P file sharing. Here's a proof of concept posted last week:

http://www.flashrealtime.com/video-o...t-replication/