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Windows Media Support
Stream from a Web Server
Stream from a Windows Media Server
 Also Visit Windows Media Web Site
Streaming from a Web server with HTTP
Any Web server can be used to host Windows Media streaming content. There are
many advantages of streaming from a Windows Media server. However, Web server streaming
may be the best option if you plan to offer only a few audio clips, for example, or if you have a
startup site with limited resources for adding servers. Because you can use your existing Web server,
you can stream now on the Internet or an intranet using Windows Media Technologies.
Preparing Your Content
Windows Media Player can play back audio and video content the same whether a file is on a
Windows Media server, a Web server, a network server, or a local hard disk. The server does not
affect the quality of the media itself. What the server does affect is how the packets of data containing
the media are delivered to Windows Media Player. A Windows Media server is designed to handle
busy, congested networks and low-bandwidth connections to client computers running Windows
Media Player. This section describes things to consider before you encode content, and then presents
the procedures for configuring Windows Media Encoder for Web server streaming.
Procedures
These procedures describe how to configure
Windows Media Encoder 7 for Web server streaming. Windows Media Encoder 7 can be downloaded from the Windows Media Technologies page at the Microsoft Web site. These procedures include:
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How to configure Windows Media Encoder 7 to encode a file.
- How to create a Windows Media metafile.
- How to add a tag to an HTML file.
To configure Windows Media Encoder 7 to encode a file
- On the Session menu, click New Session Wizard.
- On the Session Selection screen, click Convert an audio or video
file into a Windows Media file.
- On the File Selection screen, enter the file you want to convert and
the file you want to create.
- On the Output File Distribution screen, click File will stream
from a Web server or play directly on a computer. When you make this
selection, only those profiles that can be used for encoding files for Web
servers will be displayed on the next screen.
- On the Profile Selection screen, click an appropriate profile in the
list.
- On the next two screens, type display information and review your settings.
- After you close the wizard, click Start on the encoder to begin
encoding.
Windows Media Encoder takes a few seconds to begin encoding the source information. The Time display under Summary Statistics begins first; this verifies that your content is encoding. After a three-second delay, the amount of data being sent begins to accrue.
If you want to edit or create a new a profile, click Create and Manage
Profiles on the Profile Selection screen. The system profiles that come with
Windows Media Encoder 7 cannot be edited directly. To edit a
system profile, make a copy, and then edit the copy. To ensure that a profile is
configured to encode files that will stream from a Web server, make sure only
one Target Audience check box is selected on the Audience Selection
screen of the Edit Profile wizard.
Note Creating and managing profiles is a method
provided for advanced users with a detailed knowledge of bandwidth capacity, media settings, and codec usage. For more information, see the Windows Media Encoder Help documentation.
After you encode your media files, there are two more steps in preparing your content for streaming from a Web server: creating Windows Media metafiles
with .wax, .wvx, or .asx file name extensions and adding tags to your HTML files. The HTML tag points the
end user's browser to the metafile, which points Windows Media Player to the content—the Windows Media file. A metafile must be used to reference the media because a direct reference to the media in an HTML tag will cause most browsers to attempt to download the media rather than stream it.
To create a Windows Media metafile
- Open a text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad.
- Type the following metafile script, replacing the URL with that of your media. Reference the media just as you would any other Web file.
<ASX VERSION="3.0">
<ENTRY>
<REF HREF="http://YourWebServer/Path/YourFile.wmv" />
</ENTRY>
</ASX>
You can place the metafile in the same folder as that of your media. If you do so, you can use a relative path, which is simply the name of the file. The REF line would look like this:
<REF HREF="YourFile.wmv" />
- Save the text file, using the name of your media file followed by the .wvx
extension if the metafile points to a file with a .wmv extension, or .wax if the metafile
points to a file with a .wma extension, such as YourFile.wvx. The file
name extension .asx
was used in previous versions of Windows Media Technologies.
To add a tag to an HTML file
- Using a text editor such as Microsoft Notepad, open the Web page that you want to add the reference to the media to.
- Add the URL of the metafile. For example:
<HTML>
<BODY>
Play this Windows Media file:
<A href="http://YourWebServer/Path/YourFile.wvx">
YourFile</A>
</BODY>
</HTML>
- Copy the Windows Media files (with .wma, .wax, .wmv, and .wvx file name extensions) to your Web server.
When an end user clicks the reference on the Web page, the metafile is downloaded and Windows Media Player opens. Windows Media Player opens the metafile, and then opens and plays the
Windows Media file from your Web server.
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Streaming from a Windows Media Server
Pre-recorded content (often called "on-demand") is media such as a video tape or .wav file that has been converted to ASF or WMA and placed on a Windows Media server. Live content is captured directly from a recording source, encoded to a stream, and delivered to users.
The term "unicast" describes a typical file transfer process in which a separate copy of the data is sent from the source to each client that requests it.
Pre-recorded Unicast
Pre-recorded unicast content is often called "on-demand" content because, like traditional Web content, it is always available, and users can view their own copy of the file. The only difference is that the files don't download, they stream.
Setting up Windows Media Services for unicast streaming of pre-recorded content is a fairly straightforward process:
- Place your saved Windows Media file (ASF or WMA) in the ASFROOT directory on the NT Server running the Windows Media Administrator.
- Create an ASX or WAX file, a text-based metafile that provides a link between your page and the Windows Media file. For an ASX file the code would look like this:
<ASX version="3">
<Entry>
<ref href="path\file.asf"/>
</Entry>
</ASX>
- Change the path in the
<REF HREF> tag so that it points to your Windows Media file.
- Save the file into the same folder as the Windows Media file, and change the extension from .txt to .asx or .wax.
Live Unicast
With live unicast content, the Windows Media Encoder is used to encode directly from the source to a publishing point. Each requesting client receives a separate live stream.
- Start the Windows Media Administrator by going to Start, Programs, Windows Media, Windows Media Administrator.
- In the left navigation, select Unicast Publishing Points.
- Under Broadcast Unicast Publishing Points, check Use wizard to create new broadcast publishing point.
- Click the Broadcast button and select New. This will bring up a wizard that will create your Unicast Publishing Point. Click Next.
- Select Create a broadcast publishing point and click Next.
- Select Windows Media Encoder as the source of your stream and click Next.
- Enter a name for your stream in the Alias field and the path to your Windows Media Encoder in the Path field. The path to your Windows Media Encoder should begin with MSBD://. For the port number, enter the number you selected when configuring the Windows Media Encoder. If you accepted the default settings in the encoder, enter port 7007 and click Next.
- Select MMS for Protocol (MMS uses automatic rollover from UDP to TCP and HTTP). Select what you want the wizard to create, and then click Next.
- Review your selections. Click Next to accept them or click Back to make changes.
- Save your ASX or WAX file.
- Click Finish to save your unicast publishing point.
- Now you are ready to test your stream. Start the encoder and double-click the ASX or WAX file.
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