Whether you have libraries of content or a steady stream of user-generated
content that you want to convert from one video format to another, the beta
release of IIS Transform Manager can help. Transform Manager is an
extensible media transform
engine that easily enables "Watch Folder" job submission, queuing,
management, integrated media transcoding/transmuxing, and
batch-encryption of on-demand audio and video files.
Transform Manager integrates directly with
Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 to allow you to queue up multiple encode
jobs in specified input folders ("Watch
Folders") on your server, process
them per a
Job
Template created from a set of pre-defined rules ("Tasks"), and then deliver them directly
to specified output folders. For example, you could drop a set of
Windows Media or MP4 files into your Watch Folder, transcode them as
IIS Smooth
Streaming presentations, and then deliver them directly to
IIS Media Services
4.0 Web folders, complete with
Microsoft Silverlight media players. Transform Manager
can also quickly convert (or "transmux") your H.264-based Smooth
Streaming presentations directly into MPEG-2 Transport Stream segments
and manifests for adaptive streaming to Apple® iOS devices.
In addition, Transform Manager has an
Application Programming Interface
(API), allowing you to write your own Tasks that can be used to
support custom actions, third-party encoders, or your own encoding applications.
Features
IIS Transform Manager 1.0 Beta allows you to do the following:
- Convert an existing content library. Using the integrated Expression
Encoder 4 task, transcode an existing content library of Windows Media
Video (WMV) or MP4 files and schedule for multiple-bit rate (MBR) encoding
to the Smooth Streaming file format. Using this workflow, you can
set up Watch Folders that point to existing content, transcode, and
deliver full Smooth Streaming and Silverlight player experiences to
your Web server.
- Transmux MP4 files for Smooth Streaming.
Repackage appropriately-encoded fragments in .mp4 file containers to
Smooth Streaming file containers (.ismv, .isma) without re-encoding.
- Transmux for Apple iOS devices. Drop existing Smooth
Streaming presentations into a Watch Folder to batch-transmux them
into MPEG-2 Transport Stream segments and manifest files, enabling delivery from the Smooth Streaming
extension in IIS to Apple mobile devices.
- Apply DRM encryption. Encrypt on-demand
Smooth Streams using Microsoft
PlayReady license servers and update the client manifest used by
Smooth Streaming Clients.
- Constant ingest / transcode. Create a new Watch
Folder that allows
an incoming run rate of up to 100 constant files per minute to be
queued and encode to Smooth Streaming file format with the
integrated Expression Encoder 4 task, using a configurable preset
and a Smooth Streaming player template.
- Monitor Watch Folders. A Notifications
feature on Watch Folders allows you to post notifications to your
own web service to collect, send e-mail, log in a database, or build
you own monitoring UI.
- Apply improved Logging. Finer-grained logging
controls and log rollover settings let you get and keep exactly the
information you need.
- Scale out with HPC. Integration with
multiple-core High
Performance Computing clusters of Windows Servers means you can
transform a full library of media content in much less time.
- Manage credentials granularly. You can
manage credentials on each Watch Folder.
- Task-chaining. Create custom job templates that combine multiple
tasks into a unique workflow.
- Create custom tasks. Use the updated Transform Manager Task API to create custom
tasks that integrate third-party encoding applications, media processing,
asset upload, or Web services into the workflow.
Workflow
Several of the Transform Manager 1.0 Beta features listed above are represented
in the workflow diagram for the Expression Encoder 4 task
shown in the following figure. Click the image to see a larger
version.
Figure 1. One possible IIS Transform Manager 1.0 Beta workflow for an Expression Encoder 4 task