Browse by Tags
All Tags »
IIS Media Pack (
RSS)
We’re excited to announce that IIS Media Services 3.0, which includes the RTW of Live Smooth Streaming is now available for download ( WebPI , x86 , x64 ). This release builds on the Beta’s functionality that delivered: Smooth bit-rate switching that provides your users the best possible quality at that moment in time Massive scalability through the use of cacheable HTTP Integrated Network DVR The team has been hard at work since the Beta making the product better. So what’s new in RTW? Here are the highlights... High Availability – multi-tier scalability and failover 24/7 and long-running event support Ad insertion support Try it out today by following the steps in one of the following walkthroughs: Getting Started with Live Smooth Streaming Creating and Managing Publishing Points Live Smooth Streaming for IIS 7.0 - Syndicating Content between Servers You can also download the new Smooth Streaming Deployment Guide for a step-by-step description of the encoding, server, and client set up...
Today marks the start of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas, and we brought our “A” game with a press release announcing the immediate availability of IIS Media Services 2.0 RTW ( WebPI , x86 , x64 ), including the first full production release of Smooth Streaming. You can try the experience for yourself on iis.net, and learn more on the media landing page . We are also pleased to have a key group of encoding ISVs announcing Smooth Streaming support with us, including Digital Rapids, Envivio Inc., Grab Networks Inc. (Anystream), Inlet Technologies, Rhozet, Telestream Inc., VBrick Systems Inc., ViewCast Corp. and Winnov Inc. This gives our customers lots of great choices for encoding compatible content and integrating Smooth Streaming delivery with their existing workflows. If you’re at NAB, come by the Microsoft booth to see demos of On-Demand and Live Smooth Streaming, including Live streams protected by PlayReady encryption. There are two releases available...
Announced at the MIX09 keynote , Live Smooth Streaming was released for download ( WebPI , x86 , x64 ) on Wednesday. You don’t need a live encoder to try this at home. Read below for the how… What is Live Smooth Streaming? Live Smooth Streaming provides the same great user experience as its Video On-Demand counterpart, using the same scalable delivery method that takes full advantage of commodity HTTP caches. In short, a user experience that… Starts playback and seeks instantly Does not stop to buffer Deliver the best quality your bandwidth and CPU allow at the moment Live Smooth Streaming archives incoming data and provides a full Network Digital Video Recorder (DVR). It works just like a TiVo for online video, with support for replay, pause, and jumping back to the live broadcast. If you start watching a broadcast late, you can always jump back to see what you missed, and then resume watching the live broadcast. How can I try Live Smooth Streaming? See the “ Getting Started ” walkthrough...
Live Smooth Streaming Lots is going on at MIX, so as not to overwhelm with too many posts, I’ll try to triple-dip on this one. First, as part of Scott Guthrie’s keynote yesterday (now with transcript ), we announced that live streaming is coming for Smooth Streaming. The key advantages of Smooth Streaming are as applicable to live video as on-demand. And for high volume live events where scalability concerns can force users into “waiting rooms” or a lower tier of service, the offered scalability...( read more ) Read More...
It is my pleasure to announce that the Smooth Streaming Beta is now available. Get it here for x86 , x64 , or using the Web Platform Installer (see below for details). In case you’re hearing about Smooth Streaming for the first time here... the technology adapts the bit rate of the content in throughout playback to provide your viewers with an experience that starts up instantly, seeks instantly, and delivers the best quality that network and CPU conditions will allow for any point in time. It does this while communicating using fully cacheable requests and responses, so that the power of massive HTTP caching infrastructures can provide your viewers with the best Quality of Service. Check out the extension page , the initial post , or Smooth HD to learn more. To make it easier to get started with Smooth Streaming, we will be releasing a package of sample content imminently. This package contains a test client that simulates changes in network conditions, and shows the history of bit rate...
Since we announced Smooth Streaming in October, the team has been hard at work preparing the feature for broad public release (the answer to the obvious question of “When?” is “Very soon!”... please stay tuned for details) and addressing feedback from customers in the early adoption program. But, of course, the Web (and especially the blogosphere) never stands still: RunAs Radio produced a podcast focused on Smooth Streaming and, more generally, streaming media (thanks to Richard and Greg for kindly inviting me to be on their show) Chris Knowlton highlights Smooth Streaming customer questions and the answers provided by Ben Waggoner and Alex Zambelli in a downright encyclopedic set of blog posts Updates to SmoothHD.com site that should reduce bandwidth utilized when the window is too small to see a higher quality picture from a higher bit rate Some interesting questions on my initial post, addressed below… And although this last topic is not about Smooth Streaming as such, it highlighted...
Since we announced our new IIS Smooth Streaming extension last October with Akamai , we've been spending a lot of time engaging with very-interested customers and partners. In the course of these discussions, we hear a lot of frequently asked questions about Smooth Streaming, usually along these lines: What is Smooth Streaming? Can I use my existing Windows Media content with Smooth Streaming? How is Smooth Streaming different from MBR [multiple-bit-rate] streaming? Will Smooth Streaming work with Silverlight? Is Smooth Streaming based on traditional streaming, or progressive download? Does Smooth Streaming use proprietary streaming protocols? Why is Microsoft shifting towards standards-based media delivery? How do I create Smooth Streaming content? Do I need to set up Windows Media Services to use Smooth Streaming? What kind of support will Smooth Streaming have for H.264 content? How does Smooth Streaming work? Is Smooth Streaming more scalable than traditional streaming? Are there...
Following up on our Smooth Streaming announcement last week, today we released IIS Media Pack 1.0! This first release of the IIS Media Pack features two IIS 7.0 extensions that focus on the intelligent delivery of video and audio to end users: Bit Rate Throttling, and Web Playlists. Bit Rate Throttling Bit Rate Throttling gives Web server administrators the ability to automatically meter the delivery of 11 built-in media file types, including Windows Media Video (.wmv), Flash Video (.flv), and MPEG-4 (.mp4) files. Additional media formats can be added, as can any non-media file type. By controlling how fast or how much data is downloaded to the client, site operators can see significant bandwidth cost savings for rich media content that has a high drop-off rate, such as videos on popular social media sites. When bandwidth is a concern, reducing the amount of data being sent to end users can increase the number of concurrent users per server. Another feature of Bit Rate Throttling is dynamic...
Yesterday, we released the new Microsoft Web Application Installer, or Web AI, at www.microsoft.com/web . This tool for IIS7 allows you to simply install and get running with some of the most popular PHP and ASP.NET open source and community applications. In case you missed it, we also released another tool on www.microsoft.com/web a few weeks ago: the Web Platform Installer (Web PI). Think of this, as Bill Staples put it , as "a one stop shop for downloading and installing the Microsoft Web Stack including IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server, Visual Web Developer, all of the current IIS Extensions and more!" The IIS Media Pack features are among the IIS Extensions available in Web PI. If you use this tool, you will always get the latest production-ready versions of the IIS media features. Here's the quickest way to find and install the IIS media features, using Web PI in five steps: Launch Web PI: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9588072 Click on Run when prompted After a moment, when...
With the RC version of Web Playlists , we moved from a custom XML format to a SMIL-based format for storing playlists. As a result of this change the old isx format has been retired. However, Brian Blum (a dev) in our team crafted a tool to help convert the old files. The tool can be downloaded here . Thank you Brian! As both old and the new SMIL-based playlist formats are XML by nature, this tool uses a XSL to transform the old isx to the new SMIL-based isx format. Another reason for doing this is Brian wanted you to be able to do any minor changes if you so desire without needing to look into the code. The tool usage is simple and as follows: isxTranslate.exe /? Coverts prerelease input files for IIS 7.0 Web Playlists to the release format. Usage: isxTranslate /i PLAYLISTDIR /x XSLT where PLAYLISTDIR is the path to your playlist files and XSLT is the xslt to use to convert the playlists. Example: isxtranslate /i c:\inetweb\wwwroot\playlists /x c:\tools\isx.xsl Note : This tool is just...
More Posts
Next page »