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1. How to Create Window Streaming Media?
Creating a Windows media video file (wmv, asf) is a multi-step process.  It often involves shooting, capturing, editing and encoding source materials, either audio, video or both, with all kinds of hardware and software along the way.  This simple guide gives you are rough idea of how the entire process work.

First you need to get hold of the source materials used for creating the streaming media.  This is often captured by using a video camera in digital8 or DV format.  You may also record or get material from other sources such as audio CD, DVD/VCD or existing video file in suitable formats like AVI and MPEG.

Then these materials need to be transferred to a computer through various methods like through firewire and video capture card.  Using a suitable video editing software, you then compile and edit your media sources. Suitable software include:

  • Microsoft Windows Media Encorder,
  • Pinnacle Stuido,
  • Snazzi VideoMaker,
  • Adobe Premiere and
  • others from Ulead, Sony, Avid...etc

At the end, you would create window streaming media with suitable codecs. You need to decide on what type of Windows media file format and a suitable bit rate to encode your media. For a more detailed guide to Windows Media technology, please refer to Microsoft Windows Media website.

2. How to publish your Windows streaming media?
There are various ways you can publish your streaming media.  The following paragraphs describe methods commonly used.

  • Hyperlink to Window media file
    You can simply use a URL hyperlink to reference your media file directly or to a Advanced Stream Redirector (.asx) file.

    <A HREF="mms://mydomain.com/videofilename.wmv"> Click here to view video </A>

    The actual URL hyperlink used depends how you would want to reference your media file and what protocol you want to use. When end users click on this hyperlink, their Windows Media Player will open and load the video file for playing.

  • Embedding Windows media file
    Embedding a Windows Media file places the video clip on the web page.  To create a simple embedded video file, use the code below (swap both instances of videofilename.wmv for your own media file name).

    <OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="192" HEIGHT="190" CLASSID="CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
    STANDBY="Loading Windows Media Player components..." TYPE="application/x-oleobject">
    <PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="videofilename.wmv">
    <PARAM name="ShowControls" VALUE="true">
    <param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">
    <PARAM name="ShowDisplay" VALUE="false">
    <PARAM name="autostart" VALUE="false">
    <EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2" SRC="videofilename.wmv" NAME="MediaPlayer"
    WIDTH="192" HEIGHT="190" ShowControls="1" ShowStatusBar="0" ShowDisplay="0" autostart="0"> </EMBED>
    </OBJECT>

    The Windows Media player which appears on the page can be customised to some extent.  For example, you can choose whether or not to show the playback controls, status indicator, etc.
    Note: The example above uses both EMBED and OBJECT tags for maximum browser compatibility.

3. How to make use of advanced stream redirector (.asx) file?

Example

An ASX file (Advanced Stream Redirector) is a special type of file which works closely with Windows media files.  ASX file is a metafile — a file which contains data about another file. In this case it is a simple text file containing a reference to a real media file normally in WMA, WMV or ASF format.

The following is the content of a simple ASX file.

<ASX version="3">
<Entry>
<ref href="mms://mydomain.com/videofilename.asf">
</Entry>
</ASX>

Save the above content in a text file with .asx extension and use this ASX file as the URL hyperlink for direct or embedded link inside your HTML page.

To learn more about the syntax and capabilities of Windows Media metafiles, please refer to Microsoft article on Windows Media Metafiles.

4. What are the types of Windows media file format available?
Commonly used Windows media file formats include:
  • WMV (Windows Media file with Audio/Video) file format contains both audio and video.
  • WMA (Windows Media Audio) files are very similar to WMV files except they contain audio only.
  • ASF (Advanced Streaming Format) is a streaming media format developed by Microsoft.  ASF files can contain video, audio, slide shows and synchronized events.  A variety of codecs can be used to create ASF files.  The end user must have the same codec installed to view the file.

5. What are the common file formats supported by Windows Media Player?
For this, you can refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base article on Windows Media Player

6. What are the support file format by Windows Media Services 9 series (Streaming Server)?
Windows Media Player can play files in a wide variety of digital media file formats, but Windows Media Services cannot stream all of those files.

Servers running Windows Media Services 9 series can stream files that are in the Microsoft Windows Media Audio (WMA), Windows Media Video (WMV), Advanced Systems Format (ASF) and Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-1 Layer 3 (MP3) formats.  However for MP3 format, Windows Media Services does not support variable-bit-rate .mp3 files.

7. What are the different versions of WMV/WMA and which one should I use to encode my media file?
Available Windows Media format versions are 7, 8 and 9.  If you encode your media with Windows Media 9 format and a user's Windows Media Player is older version or does not have the required codec install, he/she will not be able to play the media file.  However, most of the time, Microsoft Windows Media codecs are automatically downloaded by Windows Media Player, including all Windows Media codec updates.

Windows Media 9 does offer new features and improvements.  Most notably Windows Media 9 features 15-30 percent performance and quality improvements over Windows Media 8, and three times the compression efficiency of MPEG-4.

So, using Windows Media 9, you would be able to encode your media in lower bit rate and yet provide equivalent quality.  Windows Media Encoder 9 series also allows you to encode file with multiple bit rate (MBR).

This allows you to have one single file with multiple resolutions/qualities and have the server serve up the correct version, depending on the bandwidth of the user connected to the content.

Example



8. Why is it some of my users cannot play my streaming media file?
Most Windows Media streaming would either use MMS or RTSP protocol.  There are specific TCP/UDP ports that are used for these protocols.  A firewall or network device that is either not configured to support or does not support such streaming protocol can prevent a user from playing the streaming media file.

For more details on this, please refer to the following Microsoft articles:

9. How much bandwidth and concurrent stream do I need?
The amount of bandwidth required depends on what is the bit rate of your streaming media and how many concurrent streams you expect to serve.
Lets say you have a few media files with 128kbps bit rate and you expect to have up to maximum of 4 users to stream the media concurrently.  Then you are looking at a bandwidth requirement of 4 x 128kbps = 512kbps and having enough concurrency limit subscription.

10. Why does my user have the following Error?
Error ID = 0xC00D000F, Condition ID = 0x00000000
Error message text - "The server session limit was exceeded."
If your user experiences the above mentioned error, most likely your user has hit the bandwidth or concurrency limit imposed by the streaming server.  Consider subscribing to more bandwidth or concurrency limit.

11. I expect a large user base and streaming high quality video, can I subscribe to this service?
The shared streaming service offered is not meant for large scale streaming for a large user base.  If your total bandwidth requirement (based on media bit rate and concurrency) exceeds a few megabits per seconds, then you should consider hosting such service on a dedicated Windows streaming server.

12. Do you offer broadcast or live streaming service?
No, we only offer on demand unicast streaming service through this shared streaming service.

 

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