The SWF (pronounced 'swiff') file format was designed from the ground up to deliver
graphics and animation over the Internet.
The SWF file format was designed as a very efficient delivery format and
not as a format for exchanging graphics between graphics editors.

It was designed to meet the following goals:

• On-screen Display—The format is primarily intended for on-screen display and so it supports anti-aliasing, fast rendering to a bitmap of any color format, animation and interactive buttons.

• Extensibility—The format is a tagged format, so the format can be evolved with new features while maintaining backwards compatibility with older players.
• Network Delivery—The files can be delivered over a network with limited and unpredictable bandwidth. The files are compressed to be small and support incremental rendering through streaming.
• Simplicity—The format is simple so that the player is small and easily ported. Also, the player depends upon only a very limited set of operating system functionality.
• File Independence—Files can be displayed without any dependence on external resources such as fonts.
• Scalability—Different computers have different monitor resolutions and bit depths. Files work well on limited hardware, while taking advantage of more expensive hardware when it is available.
• Speed—The files are designed to be rendered at a high quality very quickly.

A Concise Guide to the SWF ...

Rich media

You can see some examples on Macromedia - Flex .

But no panic, i don't insist to install a €15000 server

I use a flashplayer for streaming music:
{FLASH(movie=>/player.swf,quality=>high,height=>100,width=>354)}{FLASH}

{FLASH(movie=>http://www.runscript.com/tikimovies/player.swf,quality=>high,height=>100,width=>354)}{FLASH}

more info -> FlashStar Portal - Links

What about parsing some tiki content with DENG ?