Publishing Media Content to Silverlight Streaming Services

The Discussion

• 

  Nice.  Could not follow all that.  But have a few questions:
  1) Can all that js be replaced with c#?
  2) Do you actually need a streaming server?  Can the client just download the video and play it while it is being downloaded?

• 

  Hi Stacey,
  
  The JavaScript that's included as a remotely-based script is really to instantiate the Silverlight runtime on multiple platforms, as well as to download Silverlight if it's not present on a machine; the one-line of JavaScript that's in CreateSilverlight.js is purely for activating and invoking the runtime. So there's not much point in replacing those lines with C# - it's everything that comes after that which you would write in C#.
  
  You're right - you don't need a streaming server; you could use HTTP progressive download. But the streaming server reduces bandwidth costs because you don't have to host it yourself with Silverlight Streaming; (b) even if you were hosting it, streaming only downloads what you actually watch, as opposed to progressive download which will keep downloading ahead of what you actually need even if you stop viewing the video halfway through. The other advantage of Silverlight Streaming is that it's cached in multiple geographic locations around the world, so viewers in the US, Europe or the Far East will each have a local, responsive solution. This kind of content distribution usually costs a fair amount of money, and we're making it available for free here.
  
  Hope this helps,
  
  Tim

• 

  Tim Sneath wrote:

  Hi Stacey,
  
  The JavaScript that's included as a remotely-based script is really to instantiate the Silverlight runtime on multiple platforms, as well as to download Silverlight if it's not present on a machine; the one-line of JavaScript that's in CreateSilverlight.js is purely for activating and invoking the runtime. So there's not much point in replacing those lines with C# - it's everything that comes after that which you would write in C#.
  
  You're right - you don't need a streaming server; you could use HTTP progressive download. But the streaming server reduces bandwidth costs because you don't have to host it yourself with Silverlight Streaming; (b) even if you were hosting it, streaming only downloads what you actually watch, as opposed to progressive download which will keep downloading ahead of what you actually need even if you stop viewing the video halfway through. The other advantage of Silverlight Streaming is that it's cached in multiple geographic locations around the world, so viewers in the US, Europe or the Far East will each have a local, responsive solution. This kind of content distribution usually costs a fair amount of money, and we're making it available for free here.
  
  Hope this helps,
  
  Tim

  
  
  Thanks Dr.  Perfect clarity on both questions.  Keep up the fine work

• 

  I'd love to download your code, but all i see in the zip is the manifest.xml
  where can i find the js-files?
  
  Oops, sorry (reaction on other post...):s:s

• 

  I have a tricky question I wanted my uploaded silverlight application (silverlight streaming service) to be a background of my silverlight controls. Is this possible? Something like I just want to have a handle of the media element downloaded from the Silverlight hosting service, and use it? Or, should I deploy my entire application (including my controls) in this hosting service?:O

• 

  Looks good for a single wmv.  I have a few wmv files each between 7 and 10 minutes duration that I would like to combine into a single viewing experience.
  Because of the streaming services limitations each of these will need to be uploaded seperately if I understand correctly.
  I would then like to use Expression Encoder to create a viewer that would have a playlist so that the user could view all the segments sequentially.
  
  Is there a cookbook somewhere to tell me how to do that?
  
  Thanks
  Janis

• 

  Tim,
  
  This, along with your blog post from 7/31/07 about using iFrames for embedding SL content on any web site is getting me thinking. Hosting content on Silverlight Streaming and using iFrames *seems* to solve a number of problems. Would you recommend this approach regardless of the SL content? In other words, if the content is mainly graphics and not streaming media, is this still a good approach? It really does seem a bit easier than trying to do SL embedding on the web site pages.
  
  Your thoughts?
  Charlie
  www.NoonmarkAntiques.com