Overview

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Edition has the Media Web Part, which will allow you to play music and videos. However, the Media Web Part does not support Flash (SWF) videos or files.  Many organizations are still interested in playing Flash files on the SharePoint site since Flash is still a popular tool to use for creating media content.

It is possible to play a Flash file on a SharePoint site, and there are three approaches for doing it.

Approach 1: Using a Web Part that Plays Flash Videos

Having a web part that can support Flash videos is nice because it can be used throughout your site collections and/or your sub-sites, and it’s available for content managers for the sites to use as well.

If you have .NET developers on staff, or if you have the ability to code in .NET, you can use Visual Studio 2010 to create your own custom web part to use on the SharePoint site.  What’s helpful is a number of developers have published tutorials on creating your own custom web part to play a Flash video, so it can give you a head start on creating your own Flash web part.

If you don’t have .NET developers on staff, or if you don’t have the ability to code in .NET, or you don’t have the money to hire a developer, there’s no need to worry.  Companies and developers have already created web parts to play Flash, and they have made them readily available to the public.

Amerin has a Media Player SharePoint Web Part available for purchase (http://www.amrein.com/apps/page.asp?Q=5747).  In addition to supporting SWF files, it also supports other media file types such as QuickTime and Flash Video (FLV) files.  At $75.00/server, it’s a reasonable price.

If your budget is tight, and you’re only looking for the capability of playing an SWF file,  G Vijai Kumar has made a Flash Player web part available for free, and he also includes the source code for the part.  You can download the WSP package from the following site: http://www.fivenumber.com/most-common-custom-webparts-part-4-–-flash-media-webpart/.  Mike Knowles has also made a Flash web part player available for free, and he includes instructions on installing and configuring on your SharePoint configuration. You can download the page from the following site: http://mikeknowles.com/blog/2010/01/10/SharePointFlashWebPart.aspx.

Remember that many of these web parts need to be installed on the SharePoint server, so you need to either have access to your server, or you need to have the person responsible for maintaining the servers install it for you.

Approach 2: Using the Content Editor Web Part and HTML

You may have a situation where you only want to play a Flash file on one page.  You may be running your SharePoint site from the cloud or from a shared hosted site, which usually has limitations on what you’re allowed to have installed on the SharePoint server.  Your company or organization may have restrictions and regulations on installing custom code on servers.  If you fit into any of these scenarios, you can still play a Flash file with just a little bit of HTML and the Content Editor Web Part (CEWP).

Approach 3: Using the Page Viewer Web Part and HTML

If you don’t want to use the CEWP, you can use the Page Viewer to display an HTML page that’s playing the SWF file.  You can also use the Page Viewer to play the SWF file directly, but it will take up the size of the browser window.

Tutorial for Approaches 2 and 3

I have created a step-by-step tutorial demonstrating how to add an SWF file using either method, which is available here: http://mymwalimu.org/spbymwalimu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PlayFlashVideoInSharePoint.pdf

Can You Play FLV Files with These Approaches?

Yes you can!  Zieglers posted an entry on the blog on how to play FLV files in SharePoint using the Content Editor Web Part, a JavaScript library and an SWF file that acts as the FLV player.  You can get the files and read the tutorial here: http://zieglers.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/how-to-play-flash-video-in-sharepoint/.