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What are the Windows Media Technologies?
Using Windows MediaTM Technologies you
can create, deliver, and play streaming media files for applications
ranging from news and entertainment to e-commerce and corporate
training. Windows Media Technologies components include the Windows
Media Tools, Windows Media Services streaming server, and Windows Media
Player. These provide an end-to-end solution for streaming multimedia,
from content authoring to delivery to playback.
What is Streaming?
Streaming is the term used for media files that, unlike conventional
files that must download in their entirety, begin playing while they are
being transmitted to the player. Why is streaming important? Time. Media
files are usually large and take a long time to download. Even short
30-second clips can take 20 minutes or longer to download over a normal
28.8 kilobit per second (Kbps) Internet connection. A 30-minute video
would take hours.
With Windows Media Technologies, content authors can create, deliver,
and play streaming media files in the Advanced Streaming Format (ASF).
ASF files solve the problem of long download times by starting playback
almost immediately, while the data is being sent. As the name streaming
suggests, ASF files flow like a stream. Rather than picking up and
sending a whole reservoir of data at once, ASF files send the first part
of an audio or video clip down the "pipe" first. While that is
playing, the rest of the data flows down, arriving in time to be played.
To make sure playback isn't interrupted if logjams slow the network, the
player collects a small backlog of data, called a buffer, before it
starts playing. If the data keeps flowing fast enough, playback is
continuous. Users only have to wait the few seconds it takes to create
this buffer before viewing the file, regardless of whether the file
lasts 30 seconds or 30 minutes.
What's Possible with Windows Media Technologies?
Windows Media Technologies can stream both live and on-demand (stored)
content. On-demand content can be streamed from either a Web server or a
Windows Media Services server, though the latter provides more
flexibility and better performance. And Windows Media Services performs
both standard unicast streaming (delivering live or on-demand content to
thousands of users) and bandwidth-conserving multicast streaming
(sending a single stream of real-time content to an unlimited number of
users).
Windows Media Technologies also give content authors the ability to
embed the Windows Media Player in a Web page. To make streaming media
files interactive and to create rich multimedia presentations, authors
can add script commands to open Web pages in adjoining browser frames or
place text captions in the player screen, all synchronized with the ASF
content. For more examples of what's possible with Windows Media
Technologies, visit the Windows
Media Technology Showcase.
The Windows Media Technologies 4.0 open up a whole new realm of
possibility for generating revenue and for business solutions. With
FM-stereo quality audio at Internet connection speeds, customers are
willing to pay to view and listen. Companies are taking advantage of two
new features--the improved content piracy protection in the new Windows
Media Rights Manager, and an easy-to-use wizard that sets up viable pay-per-view
applications. Other companies are adding audio or video to their
online training or Web-based communications applications, making the
delivery of the information more effective.
How To Offer Streaming Media with Windows Media Technologies
There are three basic steps to delivering ASF files: create, serve, and
play. The Windows Media Technologies provide the tools and platforms
necessary for all three tasks.
Creating Streaming Media - Windows Media Tools.
The content creation components of Windows Media Technologies include
tools for authoring both live and on-demand content, and for converting
other file formats such as WAV, AVI, MPEG and MP3 to ASF.
The Windows Media Encoder creates live content for broadcast over the
Internet or intranets. Content authors can encode live audio and video
feeds and then add them to dynamic mixtures of other media. The tool
synchronizes and compresses the media components into a single file,
augments the file with error-correction information, and delivers it to
a Windows Media Services server, which then transmits it over a network.
The Windows Media Encoder can also encode stored content for on-demand
playback.
The other Windows Media tools provide simple ASF authoring tools for
creating or editing on-demand content. The tools include the Windows
Media On-Demand Producer, Windows Media Author, Windows Media Plug-in
for Adobe Premiere, and the command-line utilities VidToAsf, WavToAsf,
and PublishToAsf. In addition to the growing number of Windows Media
content creation tools, there are also an increasing number of
third-party tools that output .asf files. For more on content authoring
and the Windows Media Tools, visit Create
It.
Hosting and Delivering Streaming Media - Windows Media Services.
To host an ASF file for streamed delivery, you simply place the
compressed ASF file on a Windows Media Services server and link to this
file on a Web server.
The Windows Media server components are a set of services running on
Windows NT® Server that can unicast and multicast
audio, video, and other media to client computers. To deliver live,
real-time content, the server works in conjunction with the Windows
Media Encoder, which compresses the audio and video feed in real-time
and passes it to the Windows Media server for delivery to the network.
On-demand ASF files must be stored on a server's hard drive and passed
to the network by the Windows Media Services server. The server software
includes the Windows Media Administrator (a set of administrative tools
used to manage, configure, and monitor Windows Media Services) and the
Windows Media Rights Manager (a digital rights management tool for
reducing intentional and unintentional piracy of content). For more on
hosting and delivery of content with Windows Media Services, visit Serve
It.
Windows Media Services offer the widest range of bandwidth support in
the industry, delivering live broadcasts or streaming stored multimedia
content from as low as 3 Kbps audio to 6 Mbps of audio and video.
Windows Media Services can scale to meet the heaviest demands; a single
server can scale to support over 3000 simultaneous user connections,
letting you host large Internet broadcasts easily and cost-effectively.
And Windows Media Services automatically ensure top performance over the
network for the smoothest video and richest audio experience to every
end user. For detailed information on Windows Media Services, visit Windows
Media - Serve It.
NetShow™ Theater Server extends the streaming media services of
Windows Media Services to much higher bandwidths, allowing delivery of
full-motion, full-screen MPEG video with guaranteed performance across
high-bandwidth networks. For more information, visit the NetShow
Theater Server home page.
Playing Streaming Media - Windows Media Player. Users play ASF
content with the Windows Media Player. Intranet and Internet surfers can
use the player to play audio, illustrated audio (synchronized sound and
still images), and full-motion video files, plus RealAudio and RealVideo
4.0 (and earlier) content, as well as to offer playback of many other
multimedia data types. With the advanced content compression
technologies in Windows Media Technologies 4.0, Windows Media Player
delivers superb audio and video quality at standard 28.8 kilobit per
second (Kbps) Internet connections. For more information or to download
the player, visit the Windows Media
Player site.
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