NetConnection NetStream questions

I’m working on a gallery where the user clicks a thumbnail and a screen comes up with a larger pic and an .flv in it.

the gallery will be an .swf that gets loaded into a container .swf. My question is when should I create the NetConnection and utilize NetStream?

my logic:

create the connection when the user loads the gallery .swf and turn it off when the user navigates to another section of the site (different .swf)

when in the gallery users will be able to choose from 1 out of 100 or so thumbnails and launch the popup. It probably makes sense to keep the connection open the whole time the user is in the gallery .swf? right???

first time using netConnection, netStream and I don’t want to cause any performance issues!

thanks.