The IIS Smooth Streaming Format SDK provides application developers the capability to mux encoded video and audio elementary streams into Smooth Streaming fragmented-MP4 format that is compliant with the Smooth Streaming Format and Protected Interoperable File Format (PIFF) specifications. The IIS Smooth Streaming Format SDK includes a native C++ static library that can be linked into your applications to support the muxing of fragmented-MP4 into files or sent live via HTTP POST to a server running Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 and IIS Media Services 3.0. The SDK is available for download here – Download IIS Smooth Streaming.

Documentation for the SDK can be found online here – IIS Smooth Streaming Format SDK MSDN documentation and the release notes are available here – IIS Smooth Streaming Format SDK Beta 1 Release Notes.

The primary purpose of the IIS Smooth Streaming Format SDK is to enable developers to create applications that can generate PIFF compliant Smooth Streaming formatted fragmented-MP4 files for use in video-on-demand and live streaming scenarios. In addition, the SDK can be used to encrypt content using standard AES encryption as required by the PIFF specification (this SDK only supports the PlayReady specific protection headers).

It is expected that the video and audio encoding functionality is done externally from the SDK.  Encoding for VC-1 can be accomplished by using the Microsoft VC-1 Encoder SDK – Professional. If you wish to do H.264 encoding, you will need to acquire a 3rd party H.264 encoding SDK and AAC audio encoder.  There are lots of encoding library choices available both free and commercial. 

The components of the SDK include:

1. A static-linked packaging library ssfsdk.lib, along with appropriate header files, that delivers f-MP4 wrapping capability to an application for use with the following video and audio codec combinations:
   • Closed GOP encoded VC-1 with Elementary Stream Sequence Headers and WMA Pro, or WMA audio
   • H.264 (avc1) and AAC-LC audio
2. Sample source code for a basic on-demand muxing application that uses DirectShow to source from files.
3. Link to online MSDN documentation.

The key features of this Beta 1 release of the Smooth Streaming Format SDK are:

• Support for Protected Interoperable File Format (PIFF) compliant fragmented-MP4 file output.
• Support for ISO Base Media (ISO/IEC 14496-12:2008) spec compliance.
• Support for muxing live and on-demand content.
• Support for appropriate header boxes and formatting required for live streaming using IIS Media Services.
• Support for AES-CTR encryption of VC-1 encoded content for use with PlayReady licensing servers and Silverlight 3.0 or higher.
• Support for writing out a compliant server manifest files.
• Support for writing out a compliant client manifest files.

To give you a peek at the roadmap, some upcoming features planned for Beta 2 include:

• Subsample encryption support for encrypting H.264 content in compliance with PIFF 1.1
• Multi-language audio muxing
• Text tracks
• Sparse streams
• A sample for live streaming

NOTE: Beta 1 of the SDK is provided for evaluation purposes and for use in testing your Smooth Streaming encoding implementations. Beta 1 does not currently give you a “Go-Live” license, so you will need to wait until Beta 2 if you plan to use this in production.

If you have questions on how to use this SDK in your applications, comments, or feedback on the SDK please send them to me directly or to smooth@microsoft.com. 
We are looking forward to incorporating your feedback and ideas into the Beta 2 release.

Resources

• Download the Protected Interoperable File Format specification
• Download the IIS Smooth Streaming Transport Protocol Specification
• Download IIS Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit 1.0 – Beta 2
• More Information on Smooth Player Development
• API documentation for Smooth Streaming Player SDK
• More Information on Smooth Streaming
• More Information on Live Smooth Streaming
• Supporting documentation on getting started  with Smooth Streaming
  • Smooth Streaming for IIS 7.0 – Getting Started
  • Live Smooth Streaming for IIS 7.0 – Getting Started
  • Smooth Streaming Deployment Guide
  • Building your first Smooth Streaming Player using SSME

Beta 2 of the IIS Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit (SSPDK) contains a very important Silverlight control called the SmoothStreamingMediaElement. This control is the core client side component for making Smooth Streaming work in Silverlight. 

In the latest release, Vishal Sood and team have added in support for a new manifest format called the Composite Manifest. 

This new manifest can be used in scenarios where you want to do one of the following:

• Create a new video clip that is composed of many smaller sections of existing content.
• Create a single or series of highlight clips from a very long clip (which could be the archive of a live event).

I view this new Composite Manifest like a new Edit Decision List (EDL) format since I have a background in the broadcast and post production world. This new manifest allows me to create a cuts only EDL file that can be used by the player to dynamically generate new clips without going through the process of re-assembling, re-encoding, or trans-muxing assets.  

This new manifest enables really cool scenarios where you can create Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) on the fly in a web based RCE tool (more coming on this later…) and generate new assets from existing ones without touching the content. 

Pay close attention to the fact that even though your Smooth Streaming files may have chunks that are 2 seconds in duration, the new Composite Manifest lets you start and end your clips within the boundaries of that chunk. So you are not restricted to making edits at the fragmented-MP4 chunk boundaries.

Read up on the new Composite Manifest format and how to define Clips here:

http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2010/01/22/composite-manifest-support-for-rough-cut-editing-scenarios-in-ssme.aspx

Read all about the new features in the Player SDK, and download the bits here: http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2010/01/15/iis-smooth-streaming-player-development-kit-beta-2-released.aspx

Key features include:

• Basic Playback controls

  • APIs such as Play, Pause, Stop, etc.
  • Events for Playback and Diagnostics
  • Properties to track position, etc.
• Advanced Playback support
  • DVR support for Live Smooth Streaming
  • Support for keeping track of Live event while in DVR (*new in Beta 2*)
  • Trick Play: Slow Motion
  • Trick Play: Fast Forward / Rewind (*new in Beta 2*)
• H.264 / AAC support (*new in Beta 2*)
• Monetization
  • Ad Playback integration – scheduling capabilities, tracking Ad progress
  • Live Ad Insertion with Live Smooth Streaming
  • Rich Analytics with IIS Advanced Logging
  • Support for specifying markers/Ad ingestion point outside the main manifest (*new in Beta 2*)
• Content Protection – PlayReady integration for VC1 content
• Composite Manifest Support for scenarios like Rough Cut Editing (*new in Beta 2*)
• Selecting Tracks for playback (e.g., restrict the bit-rates available, support multiple camera angles in a single stream, etc.)
• Support for progressive download Ads/content
• SSME is used in Silverlight Media Framework(SMF) and the partnership helps facilitate faster player development

The Silverlight Media Framework has also been updated to version 1.1 which includes the latest SmoothStreamingMediaElement from Beta 2 of the Smooth Streaming Player SDK. This includes support for progressive download content in addition to Smooth Streaming format support.

Get the latest drop of the Silverlight Media Framework 1.1 on Codeplex: http://smf.codeplex.com/

Michael Scherotter just posted a great sample of creating Netflix style ‘zoetrope’ player thumbnails in Silverlight.

His sample uses the latest version of the Silverlight Media Framework that is posted at http://smf.codeplex.com, and Expression Encoder 3.0.

We are looking into adding in support for embedded "Zoetrope” tracks to the Smooth Streaming Format SDK and Silverlight Media Framework in a later release.

Article: http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archive/2010/01/22/scrubbing-with-thumbnails-with-the-smf-player.aspx

Demo: http://xmldocs.net/smf

Source Code: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SMFThumbnailScrub

In addition, we released the beta of the Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit, which allows developers to easily create Smooth Streaming experiences using Silverlight. Supported features include PlayReady

http://blogs.iis.net/chriskno/archive/2009/10/12/iis-media-services-3-0-including-iis-live-smooth-streaming-has-been-released.aspx

See these blog posts to learn more about the key new features that are part of this release:

• IIS Live Smooth Streaming: http://blogs.iis.net/jboch/archive/2009/10/09/rtw-of-live-smooth-streaming-is-now-live.aspx
• IIS Advanced Logging: http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2009/10/12/iis-advanced-logging-1-0-released.aspx
• IIS Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit – Beta 1: http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2009/10/09/iis-smooth-streaming-player-development-kit-1-0-beta-1-released.aspx

James Clarke provides a great overview of the new features in this blog post.

To check out the Screen Capture tool in action, check out Keith Comb’s HD Screencast demo post here.

Today I wanted to check out the new API, particularly the new sample PowerShell 2.0 module that James built out to put into the SDK.

You can locate the new sample PowerShell cmdlet in the Samples directory of the SDK :  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Expression\Encoder 3\SDK\Samples\EncoderPowerShellModule.

The sample comes as a Visual Studio C# project that you need to compile. I converted the project to a VS 2010 solution and then compiled it quickly without any issues.

Note that there is a post-build script that is run to copy the output into your WindowsPowershell modules folder – watch out for that if you have Powershell configured in a non-default way.

I created a folder called ExpressionEncoder in my Modules folder under WindowsPowershell and deployed the ExpressionEncoder.dll into that folder.

The big trick if you are running on Windows 7 RC x64, you have to launch the PowerShell (x86) version and not the x64 version or you will get an error message that the Microsoft.Expression.Encoder assembly can’t be found.  That is due to the fact that it is a 32 bit assembly and it can’t be loaded from the x64 version of PowerShell 2.0.

Once you switch over to the x86 version of PowerShell 2.0, you can edit your $profile, and add the following line to it.

import-module ExpressionEncoder

Now you can do something like the following to batch convert a folder of media to a specific profile template:

ls ‘C:\users\Public\Videos\Samples’ | Convert-Media -VC1IISSmoothStreamingSD480pVBR -TemplateBlackGlass -Output $home\desktop

This example runs all files in a folder through the Zune HD Profile for H.264 and outputs it to a directory.

Once the encoding is kicked off, you will see the progress in your PowerShell console.   It will display the current clip, progress percentage, the current pass and a progress bar will be displayed as well.

Now, you can get more complex and write some very handy PowerShell scripts to generate media in your own workflows! I love Powershell, and I’m looking forward to using this a lot in my own work.

The new virtualization technology in Windows 7 allows you to create a VHD drive as a secondary boot drive, and then run that as a virtual disk with full access to your hardware and devices. I love this, as I often run lots of beta software, including latest bleeding edge builds of Visual Studio and other media software that over time can just kill my main home or office workstation. Now I can just set up a VHD with a copy of Windows 7, add a differencing disk and then mess it up all I want, then delete the differencing disk and reboot the machine and I’m back to a clean installation.

In order to set this up, I followed the steps documented in the guide that is distributed along with this great PowerShell 2 script called Install-WindowsImage. 

The documentation for this handy PowerShell script walks you through how to set up a fresh VHD in Windows 7, and how to load a Windows Image onto that VHD.

I’m going to create VHD’s for both Windows 7 and Server R2 so that I have fresh environments to try out new things in!

Also you might want to check out the WIM2VHD project that is also available at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wim2vhd

The Windows Image to Virtual Hard Disk (WIM2VHD) command-line tool can be used to automate many of the steps above.

He did a great job of digging through the API in Reflector and figuring things out quickly.

http://blogs.southworks.net/ejadib/2009/04/16/live-smooth-streaming-how-to-start-stop-shutdown-a-publishing-point-programmatically/

The nice part about this is that we had a scenario on one of our test servers where we wanted to constantly loop a video on a publishing point so that it appeared to be a Live stream (since in these economic times we were too cheap to set up a live encoder).  So E-Z (I call him that because he makes my life easy) used the tools in the Smooth Stream SDK to play back a 10 minute clip and restart the publishing point infinitely.

Jeffrey Pollock’s new book “Semantic Web for Dummies” mentions the work that my team did on the IMM solution. Well, just a little bit.   see pg.391.

Microsoft:  Try asking for the media Management software group.  The group has used an embedded RDF database that runs on Microsoft SQL Server

Oh, well… we made it into a dummies book. I guess that make me officially a dummy.

It’s been 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the hypertext markup language that we use today to write applications on the web.  What’s he doing now?  Check out the latest TED talk on his vision for Linked Data and the work he is doing now to make that vision a reality.

He outlines his three rules:

1.) Everything is an http:// URL

2.) When I browse it,  I should get back important information about what I asked for.

3.) I should also get back relationships about the thing I asked for.

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html