? How to - Stream audio and/or video via windows media player ?

[Guest]

Using VS 2003, VB.NET and/or ASP.NET 2.0,

BACKGROUND
I have a window forms based application that contains a TreeView control and
a WebBroswer (AxSHDocVw.AxWebBrowser) control. The TreeView is populated with
nodes that when clicked play an audio clip from specified local or web URL
and navigate the browser control to a specified local or web URL. Audio
playback uses as hidden media player object AxWMPLib.AxWindowsMediaPlayer).


PROBLEM
My client now wants the application moved from a windows based app, to a web
app. My plan is to use redevelop the app in ASP.NET 2.0.

The biggest question I have is - how do I stream audio and/or video files
from my ASP server to the client? Will I need special software and/or
configurations on the server to allow streaming media?

Can someone point me to some web resources on this topic or better yet post
some example code?

Thanks for any thoughts?

celoftis

 

[Mike Lowery]

Using VS 2003, VB.NET and/or ASP.NET 2.0,

BACKGROUND
I have a window forms based application that contains a TreeView control and
a WebBroswer (AxSHDocVw.AxWebBrowser) control. The TreeView is populated with
nodes that when clicked play an audio clip from specified local or web URL
and navigate the browser control to a specified local or web URL. Audio
playback uses as hidden media player object AxWMPLib.AxWindowsMediaPlayer).


PROBLEM
My client now wants the application moved from a windows based app, to a web
app. My plan is to use redevelop the app in ASP.NET 2.0.

The biggest question I have is - how do I stream audio and/or video files
from my ASP server to the client? Will I need special software and/or
configurations on the server to allow streaming media?

Can someone point me to some web resources on this topic or better yet post
some example code?

Thanks for any thoughts?

If you want to stream media (as opposed to having them download it) you'll need
to install Windows Media Services. Windows Media Player can easily be embedded
into web pages.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Is Windows Media Services (WMS) somehing that I can install on my XP SP2 dev
machine or is WMS only for WinServr2003?

Also, is streaming some switch that I configure in WMS or is that something
I'll need to include in my ASP code?

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

To do the true streaming, and real control of the streaming, you'll need a
streaming media server. It'll only install on a server OS such as Win 2003
servers but not XP Pro.

You should only need to pass the audio clip url to the control that is
handling the playback. If it's a client-side control, you can always tweak
the parameters through some server-side code when passing it back the
client, create the object code dynamically server-side in other words.

If the file is on another site, you shouldn't need a streaming media server
due to the fact the server doesn't have control over it. Also, a typical
window media file will be in a streaming format and can do some things you
can do with a streaming file such as start/stop/pause, but it cannot do
fast-forwards since it's lacking that level of control on the stream.

 

[jtalarico]

Out of curiousity, why type of project are you working on that requires
streaming media? Do you actually require the ability to do random
access from the client (e.g. ffwd/rewind, skip 'chapters', etc.)? Do
you need to do any monitoring of the stream and client behavior?