Microsoft Silverlight and Smooth Streaming Join Forces

In October of 2008, Microsoft releasedSilverlight, a free runtime that powers rich application experiences and delivers high quality, interactive video across multiple platforms and browsers using the .NET framework. Some of the features it enables include animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback.

It could be said that Microsoft Silverlight's crowning moment came at the Beijing Olympics in August of 2008 when Silverlight 2.0 was used for Internet video streaming of the Olympics. Silverlight's capabilities were applauded and well received by anyone who tuned into NBC in the U.S., China Central Television in China, or broadcasts in 10 other major national markets.

Shortly after the Olympics, Silverlight 2 also enabled Blockbuster to offer high-quality streaming video to PC and Mac users for its MovieLink service.

A lot has happened since then, including the development and release of Silverlight 3.0, which is still in its beta phase. It looks like history will soon repeat itself, though, becauseNBC Olympicsjust announced that they have once again chosen Microsoft's Silverlight to stream the Olympics in high definition.

Perkins Miller, senior vice president of Digital Media, NBC Sports & Olympics, is excited by the prospect that Silverlight 3.0 will deliver viewers "continuous high-quality online experience that mirrors the quality of the home viewing experience that our customers have come to expect," he said. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver will be a live and on-demand "Smooth Streaming" event with full 720p. So wait, what is Smooth Streaming exactly? Let's find out.

Windows Server 2008 and Smooth Streaming

According to the Microsoft Silverlight website, the Windows Server 2008 is the next-generation server operating system that will help content providers develop new levels of reliability and scalability, but with lower-cost content delivery. Windows Server will come to represent a significant competitive edge when it comes to delivering streaming media and/or applications cross-platform and cross-device, which is already in use by most major broadcasters around the world.

With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft is targeting Silverlight media with Windows Media Services 2008 for streaming media and the newInternet Information Services (IIS)7.0 Media Services, which is an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform that offers intelligent progressive download and adaptive streaming.

The IIS Media Services (previously IIS Media Pack) consists of five media-relevant extensions for IIS: Smooth Streaming, which is adaptive streaming of on-demand media for Silverlight;Live Smooth Streaming, which is live adaptive streaming delivery to Silverlight; Advanced Logging, which is rich, real-time client- and server-side logging; Bit Rate Throttling, which is metering the speed at which media is delivered to a player; and lastly, Web Playlists, which securely sequence media content. With these features, companies can now manage and administer one infrastructure that delivers both rich media and other Web content, without requiring dedicated streaming servers.

Essentially, Smooth Streaming is an extension for IIS Media Services that enables adaptive streaming of live and on-demand media to Silverlight clients over HTTP. Smooth Streaming is also the "productization" of technology first used by Microsoft to deliver on-demand video for NBCOlympics.com. According to Microsoft, Smooth Streaming is capable of dynamically detecting and seamlessly switching the video quality of a media file a Silverlight player receives based on local PC conditions. Consumers with high bandwidth connections can experience true HD (720p+) online, while those with lower bandwidth speeds receive the appropriate stream for their connectivity.

At one time or another we've all watched a video online. Whether it was being streamed live or was nothing more than a YouTube video -- it doesn't matter. We've all experienced the frustrating buffering process that can ruin the video-watching experience. Sometimes it happens at the very beginning of the video, delaying its play time, or even worse, it happens in the middle, completely interrupting whatever it is we're trying to watch.

It is because of negative experiences like this that Silverlight's use of Smooth Streaming will prove to be very beneficial to anyone interested in viewing videos or live streams online. Smooth Streaming allows audiences to enjoy a consistent high quality streaming experiencewithoutbufferingorstuttering.

Perhaps even more interesting (and impressive) from a developer's standpoint is the fact that creating and deploying content for Smooth Streaming has been said to be very simple.

Using Expression Encoder 2 SP1, developers can encode several quality levels of a specific piece of content, and each media quality level is encoded as its own complete file. The developer must then simply choose one of the Expression Encoder's Silverlight 2 templates in order to publish all of the media content and the Silverlight player directly to a Smooth Streaming enabled IIS server. Once IIS receives the request for media, it creates virtual chunks from each video file and delivers the best bits possible to the end user.

According to Microsoft -- and many of its first users -- Smooth Streaming will provide media companies with a better way to make HD on the Web a reality. Smooth Streaming also offers code-free deployment and simplified content management for content creators and content delivery networks.

Microsoft, of course, isn't all about developers and creators. The IT giant also aims to please its biggest fan base and supporter: the average home user. It is because of that fact that Smooth Streaming will probably end up benefiting the non-professionals who simply enjoy surfing the web. Silverlight's Smooth Streaming will drastically improve the video viewing experience and bring the reliability and quality of television to any website that employs the program.

Smooth Streaming Features

There are many obvious advantages of Smooth Streaming, two of the most important being that the average user can view high definition-quality video online and the fact that users get minimal buffering and fast start-up time. Smooth Streaming technology is rather advanced, as it adapts the quality of the video stream in real time, based upon the consumer's changing bandwidth and central processing unit conditions.

Media companies can make the most of the technology by taking advantage of Smooth Streaming features to boost advertising and subscription revenues by using true high-definition (HD) video with uninterrupted delivery to extend viewing times. In exchange, Smooth Streaming can take advantage of the Web's massive existing HTTP infrastructure by bringing superior performance and scalability to media experiences delivered using HTTP.

When Smooth Streaming technology was released on April 20, 2009 at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, Microsoft demonstrated end-to-end delivery of live streams delivered viaAkamai Technology's AdaptiveEdgeStreaming for Microsoft Silverlight. According to Microsoft, live encoding of video streams will be produced withInlet Technologies' Spinnaker, the first video encoder to support IIS Live Smooth Streaming.

Live Smooth Streaming, which is currently in beta, provides personal video recorder-style access and navigation to live video streams. One of the coolest features users will surely be fond of is the ability to join events in progress, then quickly jump to the beginning or rewind the highlights.

At NAB, Microsoft also demonstrated some of Silverlight 3's most impressive features, including support for native playback of MP4 formats, an extensible decoder pipeline, full-screen HD playback using graphics processing unit acceleration, and out-of-browser capabilities.

In a press release for Microsoft's new Smooth Streaming technology, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft, made it clear that though Smooth Streaming's features will greatly benefit the average user, it will also greatly improve online experiences as a whole. "Smooth Streaming is a solution that content providers can leverage to deliver true HD-quality, highly scalable and secure online video to their customers. Coupled with the power of Silverlight, IIS Live Smooth Streaming is further evidence of Microsoft's commitment to ensure that our partners and customers have the tools and platforms they need to deliver high-quality online video experiences," Guthrie said.

The tools Guthrie is referring to include extensions for cost-effectively measuring, monetizing and caching media, and many companies have already publicly proclaimed their intention to utilize these technologies. At the National Association of Broadcasters Show, Microsoft highlighted the growing industry adoption of Smooth Streaming from leading media customers. Some of these very popular and recognizable media customers include electronic retailer HSN, and broadcasters such as NBCOlympics.com, RAI, TV 2 and CTV, as well as media ecosystem partners, including content delivery networks (CDNs), encoding independent software vendors (ISVs) and digital rights management (DRM) service providers, all of which have announced their support and intention to utilize Microsoft's Silverlight and Smooth Streaming capabilities.

Also, in order to provide the highest level of content protection, Microsoft has implemented Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady for live and on-demand smooth streaming. Leading DRM application service providers such as BuyDRM, CDNetworks, Entriq Inc., ExtendMedia Corp., Ipercast Inc. and iStreamPlanet Co. have announced support for Silverlight DRM. In addition, at NAB, BuyDRM and Envivio demonstrated the first implementation of protected Live Smooth Streaming encoding using Silverlight DRM.

Microsoft has obviously been a wildly successful company for years now and quite impressively, the IT giant has never rested on its laurels. It has continuously provided users, designers, and creators with a constant stream of new innovations that change the way people connect and experience the Internet Surely, Smooth Streaming will do the same.