The IIS Smooth Streaming Client allows you to build rich client experiences that take full advantage of both on-demand and live Smooth Streaming capabilities on computer desktops and on Windows Phone 7 mobile devices.
The IIS Smooth Streaming Client APIs provide an easy-to-use interface for developers and designers to create rich Smooth Streaming experiences using the Microsoft Silverlight platform. These .NET Framework-based APIs provide support for simple operations such as Play, Pause, and Stop and also for more complex operations such as scheduling advertisements, selecting and tracking bitrates for Smooth Streaming playback, and many more. Examples of available client-side features include simple controls such as Play, Pause, and Stop, as well as more complex functionality such as full DVR, Instant Replay, Live Ad Insertion, Multiple Camera Angles, and Seek (Fast Forward/Rewind) capabilities.
The Smooth Streaming Client is a core component of the broader open source Microsoft Media Platform: Player Framework (MMPPF). For most scenarios, the MMPPF is the simplest, most robust way to build a new Silverlight player that supports the full set of Smooth Streaming functions. The Smooth Streaming Client can be ideal for some scenarios, however, such as adding rich Smooth Streaming features to a Silverlight media player based on a different framework, or where unique scenarios can't otherwise be addressed.
To get started quickly, a Smooth Streaming Sample Player is included with each release of the MMPPF. (See the MMPPF Downloads page.) This is a pre-built player that includes support for IIS Smooth Streaming. You can configure the player to playback your content by simply editing a configuration file - no need to compile. Quick-start documentation about how to build your own player for multiple endpoints, including Windows Phone 7, is available on the MMPPF Documentation page. For more Windows Phone 7 development information, see the Windows Phone App Hub.
The Smooth Streaming Client supports the following high-level features:
- Basic playback features:
- APIs such as Play, Pause, Stop
- Events for playback and diagnostics
- Properties to track position, etc.
- Advanced playback features:
- Live Smooth Streaming DVR
- Track live events while in DVR
- *Trickplay (slow motion, fast-forward, and rewind)
- Multiple audio languages
- *Text streams (captions and subtitles)
- Offline playback scenarios
- H.264/AAC support
- Monetization features
- *Ad playback integration (scheduling capabilities, tracking
ad progress, etc.)
- *Live ad insertion with IIS Live Smooth Streaming
- *Rich analytics with IIS Advanced Logging
- Analytics APIs
- *Specify markers and ad ingestion points outside the main manifest
- Content protection – Microsoft PlayReady integration for VC-1/H.264 content
- *Composite manifest support for rough-cut editing scenarios
- Track-selection for playback (for example, restrict the available bitrates, support multiple camera angles in a single stream, etc.)
- *Progressive download of ads and content
Note The features marked with an asterisk (*) are supported on Silverlight 4 and Silverlight 5 players only. They're not supported on Silverlight for Windows Phone 7.