Animated buffer to preload a .flv

Hello all.

First time posting but I certainly browse through here quite a bit. I am trying to figure out a way (if this is at all possible) to preload .flv’s with a buffer (say five seconds) and have an animation come up whie the .flv is buffering. Is this possible at all with ActionScript and if so does anyone have any examples? I know that I can convert the video files to .swf’s and probably do it this way but I will have to go back and convert all of the videos (one of them 23 minutes long) to .swf’s which will take more time.

Please excuse my ignorance and assist if you can.

SB