Media Server Windows 10 NEW! Download

You can deliver digital media audio and video files and live streams either from a Windows Media server (a server that is running Windows Media Services) or from a Web server (a server that is running Internet Information Services (IIS)). Clients use different methods to receive digital media content from Windows Media servers and Web servers: they stream digital media from a Windows Media server and download digital media from a Web server.

With the broader availability of high-bandwidth networks and new media delivery features for IIS 7 and above, the differences that previously favored the use of a Windows Media server over a Web server for delivering digital media content have blurred. In non-multicast streaming scenarios, depending upon your business need, a Windows Media server or a Web server can both be viable options for digital media content delivery today.

Media Server Windows 10 Download

DOWNLOAD 🔥 https://fancli.com/2y3LPq 🔥

This article introduces the delivery methods and bandwidth-management capabilities of Windows Media servers and Web servers, two important aspects of media delivery to consider when you are trying to decide which server type to deploy for your delivery scenario.

A Windows Media server is designed specifically for streaming on-demand and live digital media to clients. It provides high-quality streaming over a wide range of bandwidths to Windows Media Player and to Web browsers that use the Windows Media Player 9 Series ActiveX control or the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in. It is especially useful for streaming large amounts of data over busy, congested networks and low-bandwidth connections. Streaming uses bandwidth more efficiently than downloading because it sends data over the network only at the speed that is necessary for the client to render it correctly. This helps prevent the network from becoming overloaded and helps maintain system reliability.

Users that connect to a stream can start to play it almost immediately. If streaming on-demand content was indexed during encoding, they can use Seek functions (Fast-Forward and Rewind) on their player to jump to any part of the stream without waiting for a download to finish. Streaming prevents users from downloading files directly to their hard disk because the streaming data packets are delivered directly to the client application and discarded by the client application after they are rendered.

A Windows Media server supports delivery of a limited number of popular digital media file formats, including Windows Media Audio (WMA), Windows Media Video (WMV), and MP3. It also supports the use of JPEG files as media elements in server-side playlists or as banner graphics to be displayed in Windows Media Player.

A Web server is designed to host Web sites and serve the Web site's pages and files to clients upon request. When a client requests a file from a standard Web server, all available network bandwidth is used to download the data to the client as quickly as possible. Web server deployments that serve small files to a limited number of users simultaneously require little bandwidth. But as delivery of audio and video files (which are frequently large) has increased, and as sites must serve greater numbers of simultaneous client requests, more bandwidth is required to fulfill the client requests in a timely manner.

A Web server supports delivery of an unlimited number of popular digital media file formats using standard file-download. If the IIS Media Services Smooth Streaming extensions are installed on a Web server running IIS, delivery of on-demand and live streams in the MP4 container format is also supported.

User Datagram Protocol (UDP) has long been the preferred transport protocol for traditional streaming media. It is a fast, lightweight protocol without any retransmission or data-rate management functionality, making it an ideal protocol for transmitting real-time audio and video data, which can tolerate some lost packets. UDP also has higher priority than Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-based HTTP for Internet traffic, giving streaming audio and video data higher priority over file and Web page transfers and increasing the likelihood of uninterrupted viewing on congested networks. A Windows Media server also uses UDP Resend, an intelligent UDP-retransmission scheme that ensures that it only retransmits lost packets that can be sent to a player in time to be played, instead of the blind retransmission scheme employed by TCP. This smart-resend feature conserves additional bandwidth on congested networks.

A Windows Media server may stream digital media by using the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) with UDP-based transport (RTSPT) to take advantage of UDP-based streaming efficiencies. On networks that don't support UDP, the server is normally configured to use a process called protocol rollover to try TCP-based streaming, first by using RTSP, and if that doesn't work, it uses its own version of HTTP for firewalls that allow Web traffic through port 80. This enables corporate users to view Internet content without compromising firewall security and ensures that all users on all networks can access all streaming media content. For more information about the streaming protocols that are used by Windows Media Services, see Comparing HTTP Streaming Protocol with RTSP.

The bandwidth-management capabilities that are present in a Windows Media server are lacking in a standard Web server. When a client requests digital media from a Web server, the Web server downloads the content to the client as fast as the network will allow without monitoring the quality of the delivery and adjusting the bit rate for the client in the way that a Windows Media server does. A client can start to play the content as soon as enough data is downloaded to its Internet cache (this is referred to as progressive downloading); however, in bandwidth-constrained systems, simultaneous requests from multiple clients can quickly saturate the available network bandwidth and clients must buffer more data to the cache before starting or resuming playback.

Downloading also uses the available bandwidth less efficiently than streaming. Web server content delivery uses HTTP, the standard Web protocol that is used by all Web servers and Web browsers for communication between the server and the client. HTTP operates on top of the TCP transport protocol, which handles all data transfers. TCP is optimized for non-real-time applications such as file transfer and remote log-in; therefore, it maximizes data transfer rates while ensuring overall stability and high throughput for the whole network. TCP achieves reliable data transfer by re-transmitting all lost packets, but it can't ensure that all resent packets will arrive at the client in time to be played, and so sometimes wastes bandwidth.

With IIS, you have a choice. You can use standard progressive downloads, with the limitations mentioned above, or you can use a new IIS feature called Bit Rate Throttling, described below, which provides some of the benefits of traditional streaming to almost any type of media file.

A Windows Media server sends data at the same bit rate as the content, leaving more bandwidth available for servicing concurrent client requests for content and resulting in better quality audio and video for connected clients. There is typically a delay between the time the stream is received by a player and the point at which it starts to play because the player must first buffer some data in case there are delays or gaps in the stream. This buffer allows the media to continue playing uninterrupted, even during periods of high network congestion. Because data streaming and rendering occurs almost simultaneously, streaming also enables you to deliver live content. Windows Media Services contains many additional features that are used to optimize network throughput. This section describes two of the most important: Intelligent streaming and Fast Streaming.

The most difficult task of streaming audio and video over a network is maintaining a continuous presentation to the user in a highly changeable environment. Buffering is the biggest problem of streaming digital media. It is caused when the client runs out of data in memory (the buffer) and must wait for more to arrive. The client will always run out of data if the bit rate of the incoming stream exceeds the current available bandwidth.

Intelligent streaming progresses through a series of strategies to modify the bit rate of the stream so that it plays continuously on the client regardless of the current bandwidth. As bandwidth fluctuates between server and client, the server detects the changes and adopts the best strategy. The strategies are as follows:

When bandwidth is at its best, the server uses the first strategy. As conditions worsen, the server tries each strategy in the previous list of options in succession until the bit rate is optimized for the current bandwidth.

Fast Streaming refers to a group of features in Windows Media Services that improve the quality of streaming media content for the user. These features allow for a combination of streaming, downloading, and caching to provide the best user experience:

IIS Media Services extensions are designed to add media delivery capabilities to a Web server that is running Internet Information Services (IIS) 7. The IIS Media Services extensions take advantage of the broader market availability of high-bandwidth networks, which make a Web server an increasingly practical option for digital media content delivery. This section describes the following streaming and bandwidth management extensions that are available in IIS Media Services:

IIS Media Services includes additional extensions that add Windows Media Services-like capabilitres, such as server-side playlists and rich client logging, to Web servers running IIS. For more information about these extensions, and additional extensions that may be developed to enhance delivery of digital media content from Web servers, see the IIS Media Services Web site. 2351a5e196