Difference between windows media services and iis media services

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.

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. 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. 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 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.

As network bandwidths increase, the use of TCP is becoming more common. Because TCP guarantees delivery of every packet, it is preferred for video-on-demand delivery, especially if end users are paying for the content through a pay-per-view or subscription billing model.

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.

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.

With its built-in bandwidth-management capabilities, a Windows Media server is an ideal way to deliver digital media content to large numbers of concurrent users using traditional streaming.

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.

NET session state is enabled on the local website or directory that contains the publishing point. The ASP. NET session state should be disabled to ensure proper distribution of live streams.

To do this, do the following:. Turning off ASP. NET session state disables it for all local website or directory features and applications that are using it. NET session state persistence to store user session variables, be sure to change the Session persistence type in Web Playlists to InMemory to store user session data in the web server worker process memory.

For more information about how to change the session-persistence type, see Edit Feature Settings Dialog Box. Archiving live streams to multiple on-demand Smooth Streaming presentations or segments might not work correctly if you specify a segment length of less than 5 minutes.

To ensure archiving of segmented presentations works correctly, enter a value of 5 or greater in the Segment length box. You can view the status of a publishing point's connection to a live source, such as an encoder or a publishing point on another Live Smooth Streaming server, in the State column on the Live Smooth Streaming Publishing Points page. When you start a publishing point, the State changes to Starting , which means that it's enabled.

When the live source begins delivering live streams to the publishing point, the State changes to Started ; however, the state change isn't visible unless you refresh website or directory that contains the publishing point. When you install the Smooth Streaming feature, handlers that process requests for on-demand Smooth Streaming presentation manifest files files with. If you have previously edited a website, after installing IIS Smooth Streaming, ensure that a handler is installed for.

However, a configuration error in the string that specifies the HTTP verbs for which the handler mapping applies causes the following issues:. These issues occur because the string that specifies the HTTP verbs contains a space when all spaces must be trimmed from the string. If you perform the procedure in this section by using Appcmd.

For more information about how to configure request filtering, see Request Filtering. Most pre-defined media format files are throttled correctly. However, some non-standard files might have differences in the file header that cause Bit Rate Throttling to not detect the encoded bitrate. When this occurs, the file is downloaded to clients with no throttling applied.

NET session state persistence feature for Web Playlists wasn't previously installed, you can add this feature by doing the following:. Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Asked 9 years, 1 month ago. Active 9 years ago. Viewed 6k times. Improve this question. Pit Digger Pit Digger 9, 23 23 gold badges 70 70 silver badges bronze badges. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Pricing - they are both free, assuming you already have the OS licence.

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