IIS Smooth Streaming Client Readme

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dmnelson
dmnelson

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Last Updated: September 2, 2011

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Note

IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5 was updated on September 2, 2011. Be sure to install this version to get the latest bug fixes and enhancements.

Contents

Introduction

IIS Smooth Streaming Client enables you to build rich on-demand and live Smooth Streaming experiences for Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 applications that take full advantage of the capabilities of the Smooth Streaming features in IIS Media Services. The Smooth Streaming Client Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provide an easy-to-use interface for developers and designers to create rich Smooth Streaming experiences on Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 platforms. The APIs provide support for simple operations such as Play, Pause, and Stop and also more complex operations such as scheduling advertisements, selecting and tracking bit rates for Smooth Streaming playback, and many more.

IIS Smooth Streaming Client includes the following SDK DLLs with APIs for desktop Silverlight client development and for Windows Phone 7 development:

  • %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\IIS Smooth Streaming Client\v1.x\Silverlight\Microsoft.Web.Media.SmoothStreaming.dll
  • %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\IIS Smooth Streaming Client\v1.x\Windows Phone\Microsoft.Web.Media.SmoothStreaming.dll

For more information, see Package contents.

IIS Smooth Streaming Client supports the following high-level features:

  • Basic playback controls
    • APIs such as Play, Pause, Stop
    • Events for playback and diagnostics
    • Properties to track position, and so on
  • Advanced playback support
    • DVR support for Live Smooth Streaming
    • Support for tracking live events while in DVR
    • Trickplay: slow motion/fast-forward/rewind (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)
    • Multiple Audio Language support
    • Textstream support for captions/subtitles (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)
  • Support for offline playback scenarios
  • H.264/AAC support
  • Monetization
    • Ad playback integration: scheduling capabilities, tracking ad progress (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)
    • Live ad insertion with IIS Live Smooth Streaming (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)
    • Rich analytics with IIS Advanced Logging.
    • Analytics APIs
    • Support for specifying markers/ad-ingestion points outside the main manifest (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)
  • Content protection – PlayReady integration for VC-1/H.264-encoded content
  • Composite manifest support for scenarios such as Microsoft Media Platform Video Editor (formerly RCE) (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)
  • Selecting tracks for playback (for example, restrict the available bit rates, support multiple camera angles in a single stream, and so on)
  • Support for progressive download ads/content (desktop Silverlight only, not available on Windows Phone 7)

IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5 supports IIS Media Services manifest compression (requires IIS Media Services 4.0). This is supported on desktop Silverlight only. It is not supported on Windows Phone 7.

Note

IIS Smooth Streaming Client is used in the Microsoft Media Platform: Player Framework (MMPPF). This partnership facilitates faster player development.

Package contents

When the package is installed, directories are created by default under: %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\IIS Smooth Streaming Client\v1.x\

The root directory contains the following folders and files:

  • Silverlight. Contains the SDK DLL with APIs for desktop Silverlight.
  • Windows Phone. Contains the SDK DLL with APIs for Windows Phone 7.
  • IIS Smooth Streaming Client RTW.rtf. The End-User License Agreement (EULA).
  • Readme.htm. A link to this document.
  • REDIST.txt. This file specifies which files the redistribution rights in the EULA apply to.

Note

See the license terms that accompany the package for more information about redistribution rights.

System requirements

IIS Smooth Streaming Client can be installed on the following operating systems: Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

The following software must be installed to develop applications using IIS Smooth Streaming Client:

Known issues

IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.1

  • Playback of Smooth Streams on Windows Phone 7 requires the use of the StreamInfo.RestrictTracks method, which is used to work around some of the limitations of Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 does not support dynamic resolution changes, and H.264 support extends only to level 3.0. These are Windows Phone 7 limitations, not specific to the Smooth Streaming Media Element.
  • Windows Phone 7 does not support dynamic-resolution switching. You can use Smooth Streaming encoding profiles to encode video tracks at multiple bit rates; however, each bit rate must be the same display resolution. We recommend a display resolution of 640x352 to ensure that all encoded video bit rates are of acceptable visual quality. Note that you can use the StreamInfo.RestrictTracks method to accomplish this.
  • Markers in the IIS Smooth Streaming Client do not fire in trickplay modes. Use MMPPF markers if markers are required in in fast-forward, rewind or slow-motion modes.
  • IIS Smooth Streaming Client treats URIs as case-insensitive, which may cause issues on some servers. Use lowercase manifest/stream URIs to avoid any issues.
  • Protected streams do not support the Composite Manifest feature.
  • IIS Smooth Streaming Client requires that audio, video, and textstream fragments in a live Smooth Stream have the same duration.
  • For live Smooth Streams, network requests for metadata might continue after calling the Stop method. To avoid this issue, set the SmoothStreamingSource property to Null.
  • To recover from a MediaFailed event, set the SmoothStreamingSource property to Null, and then wait for a period of time before resetting the source to reconnect.
  • The ScheduleClip method is not supported when the PlaybackRate property is not equal to 1.0. You must set the PlaybackRate property to 1.0 before calling the ScheduleClip method. After the clip finishes, you can change the PlaybackRate property back to the desired value.

IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5

  • IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5 supports IIS Media Services manifest compression (requires IIS Media Services 4.0). This is supported on desktop Silverlight only. It is not supported on Windows Phone 7.
  • IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5 supports IIS Media Services low latency for live Smooth Streams. This is supported on desktop Silverlight only. It is not supported on Windows Phone 7.
    Low-latency live streaming scenarios require that the IIS Smooth Streaming client connect to a publishing point on a Web server that is running at least IIS Media Services 4.0. Earlier versions of IIS Media Services do not support low-latency live streaming. For more information about how to configure low-latency Live Smooth Streaming, see SmoothStreamingMediaElement.BufferingTime Property.

    Note

    Audio-only streams are not supported in low-latency live streaming scenarios.

For more information

Updated documentation for the IIS Smooth Streaming Client is available on MSDN.

For more information about Windows Phone 7 development, see the Windows Phone App Hub.

Support information

For technical questions or to report issues, send an e-mail message to smooth@microsoft.com.

Release history

June 10, 2010. IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.0

September 24, 2010. IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.1

December 2, 2010. IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5

September 2, 2011. IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.5 (Update)

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Copyright © 2011 by Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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