Video Streaming

with Microsoft
Media Services

Introduction

he purpose of this report is to

provide information on the
technical requirements and steps
to set up a Microsoft system-based
video streaming service on the
Internet. Previously, those wanting to
watch a video on the Internet would
have to do a file transfer of the entire
video file into their local hard drive
and will be able to view the video only
after a long period of download time.
Incidents like running out of disk
space, a corrupted file or an
uncompleted file transfer may render
the video file useless.
With the introduction of video
streaming technology on the Internet,
we are now able to view videos as
they are being downloaded. Large
hard disk space is no longer required,
as only a small portion of the digital
video is downloaded. You could
choose to view only the first few
minutes of the video and decide if you
wish to continue. This is not possible
with the old technology, where you
would have to wait for the whole
video file to be downloaded before
you can start the viewing. Video
streaming technology also allows you
to fast-forward, re-wind and pause at
any point of the video, and you can
continue viewing from where you last
left off. The only restrictions to the
video quality are the user's video card
and Internet access speed.
Generally, there are two methods of
delivery for digital video. One is live
broadcast and the other is ondemand. In this article, we will discuss
the implementation of on-demand
video delivery.
Video-On-Demand (VOD) is the term
used for viewing videos over the
Internet at the time that you want. In
the conventional television broadcasting system, you have to wait for

the pre-allocated time-slot to watch

your television programme, or you
make a trip to a video shop and rent
a video tape or video CD. However,
with a video streaming system, you
can virtually access all the videos in
the VOD library systems from
anywhere at any time you want.

Recommended Software:
Windows 95/98/2000
Windows Media Encoder (freely
available from Microsoft Website)
Windows Media Player (freely
available from Microsoft Website)
Ulead MediaStudio Pro (bundled
with Snazzi Capture Card)

Requirements

Recommended requirements
for Internet users to watch
videos on the Internet

Basically, if you want to set up a video

streaming server, you will require a
video and a web server that are always
connected to the Internet and another
PC that does the video encoding. The
video server will store all the video
files and support concurrent streaming
to the client PC. The video encoding
PC should have audiovisual
equipment, video capture facility and
the required encoding software.

Recommended Software:
Windows 95/98/2000/Windows
Millennium Edition
Windows Media Player

Recommended requirements
for the video server

Internet Bandwidth

Minimum hardware requirements:

Pentium III 500 MHz
128 MB Ram
20 Gig SCSI Hard Disk
10/100 BaseT Network Card
Recommended Software:
Microsoft NT 4.0 or Windows
2000
Microsoft Internet Information
Services (in NT option pack CD)
Microsoft Windows Media Services
(freely available from Microsoft
Website)

Recommended requirements
for the video encoding system
Minimum hardware requirements:
Pentium II 333MHz
128 MB Ram
4 MB Video Card
6.4Gig Hard Disk
16 Bit Sound Card
Snazzi PCI Video Capture Card
CD-writer (for the ease of
transferring the video file)

Minimum hardware requirements:

Pentium II 333MHz
128 MB Ram
4 MB Video Card
16 Bit Sound Card

Apart from getting all the necessary

hardware and software, you will need
a broadband Internet connection,
preferably 1Mbps and above. This will
be the bulk of the cost for a video
streaming system. The broader the
broadband pipe, the more users
your video servers can support
concurrently. Other restrictions on the
number of concurrent users will be
based on the size of the video, the
quality of the video and the hardware
configuration. You can create a test
video of different sizes and qualities
and test the streaming from different
locations. Do not create all the videos
first before testing them, because you
might have to change and re-encode
all the videos again if they are found
to be of poor quality. You should
encode one video at a time and test
each one first. Proceed only if you are
satisfied with the output.

V i d e o

Video Streaming Network for Busy Website

Video Streaming
WEB SERVER

Digital Video Production

VIDEO SERVER
DIGITAL
VIDEO
DATABASE

DIGITAL VIDEO OUTPUT

PC WITH VIDEO CAPTURE/FIREWIRE CARD
ANALOG
VIDEO INPUT

INTERNET
TAPE

VIDEO PLAYER

VIDEO PLAYER VIDEO PLAYER VIDEO PLAYER

Video Streaming
Network

TELEVISION

CAMCORDER

VCR

configurations below and you can start

encoding video into Microsoft video
format (AVI).

The above network design is for a web

server with a lot of video and web
traffic. If you do not expect a lot of
web traffic, you can run both the video
and web server on a single machine.

Video Format

Capture Size

NTSC

352x240 (Full Size)

NTSC

176x120 (Quarter Size)

Digitizing Video

PAL

352x288 (Full Size)

A capture card is required to convert

analog video signals into digital format
to be stored in the hard drive. Place
the Snazzi video capture card into an
empty PCI slot in the video encoding
system. Snazzi capture card has both
S-VIDEO and Composite video inputs
for connecting to a video cassette
recorder, CD or DVD player,
television, or camcorder. Typically,
using S-VIDEO as the input source
will produce better quality videos.

PAL

176x144 (Quarter Size)

Next, install Snazzi drivers before you

install Ulead MediaStudio Pro. Once
you have installed MediaStudio, you
have to set up your video source
and your video format (NTSC/PAL)
correctly. Use one of the following
configurations for better results.
Select the video format NTSC or PAL
according to your video source. As for
the capture size, the bigger the size,
the clearer it is but it will also require
more bandwidth. Choose one of the

TAPE

Ulead MediaStudio Pro is being used

here as it is capable of capturing AVI
videos and it is bundled with the video
capture card. We can only convert
video in AVI format video to Advanced
Streaming Format (ASF) for streaming
at the time of publication.
To start capturing the video, you need
to play the video. Click on the capture
function to start capturing the video at
any point in time. Don't worry if you
capture more than what is required,
as you can always use video editing
software to trim away the excess
portions.
Other than capturing a video into
AVI format, you can also capture in
MPEG1 VCD format or MPEG2 DVD
format, depending on your requirement. However, we are not going to
touch on the other video formats here.

S t r e a m i n g

w i t h

Frames Per
Second

Audio Format

29.97

CD Quality:
PCM 44, 100HZ,
16Bit, Stereo,
172KB/s

25.00

Converting From AVI

Format to ASF Format
Using Windows Media Encoder, you
can convert AVI format files into
Advanced Streaming Format (ASF)
files. You have to decide on the video
size and bit rate of the ASF file for
optimum viewing. The bit rate specifies
the number of bit transferred in a
second. For 56Kbps modem users,
you can specify a bit rate of 56kbps or
lower. Generally, the larger the video
size and the higher frame per second
speed, the higher the bit rate that is
generated. With a higher bit rate,
the video will be clearer, but this will
require a bigger network bandwidth
for the video server and your clients.

M i c r o s o f t

For a single bit rate video encoding,

all the users will be viewing the same
video using different bandwidth. If the
video is encoded for 64kbps, ISDN
users will have no problem viewing it.
Dial-up modems users with 56kbps or
less will experience delays during the
buffering of the video clip, resulting in
a jerky video presentation.

Windows Media Encoder

Encoding Sample.Avi file

Single Bit Rate Encoding

Multiple Bit Rate Encoding

M e d i a

S e r v i c e s

You can also select multiple bit rate

video. If a video file is encoded in
three separate bit rate formats, eg.,
33.6kbps, 56kbps and 64kbps, then
users with 33.6kbps modem, 56kpbs
modem and 64kbps ISDN line will be
able to view the video encoded in the
respective order. The selection of bit
rate will be done automatically, with
no user intervention required.
Although all the three users will be
seeing the same video, the ISDN user
will be able to see a better quality
video than the other two.

Lower bit rate video will also be

streamed automatically to the Internet
users when network congestion
occurs. This will not interrupt the
stream of video, unlike the single bit
rate video. ISDN users will be able to
view at 64kbps normally. When there
is congestion, ISDN users will be
viewing at a lower bite rate, 56kbps
or 33.6kbps bit rate. There is only
degrading of video quality but delays
are reduced. For best encoding
results, please make sure that the
ASF size is the same as the video
capture size.

Installing Windows
Media Services
After downloading Windows Media

Linking Video To Web Page

You can link the video to the web page by creating a ASX file. ASX can be created
using any text editor like Windows Notepad.

Services from Microsoft website, you can

double-click on the program to install it
to a video server. Please follow the setup

<ASX version = "3.0"><TITLE>Grameen - Small Loans, Big Leaps</TITLE>

<LOGO HREF="http://www.panasia.org.sg/vod/images/vodicon.jpg"

instructions to complete the installation.

Style="ICON" />

Once installed, all the video streaming

<Entry>

services will be started automatically by

<TITLE>1 of 1</TITLE>

windows services whenever the machine

<AUTHOR>International Development Research Centre</AUTHOR>

boots up.

<COPYRIGHT>(c) International Development Research Centre</COPYRIGHT>

<Ref href = "mms://vod.panasia.org.sg/member/idrc-grameen.asf" />

In order to administer the Windows

Media Services, you can run Windows

<LOGO HREF="http://www.panasia.org.sg/vod/images/panicon.jpg"
Style="ICON" />

Media Administrator from NT Start

menu. It will open the administrator page
in Internet Explorer. If the page is
unreadable, it is most likely due to the

<ABSTRACT>Rural Bangladesh - it seems a million miles away from the

Information Superhighway...</ABSTRACT>
</Entry>
</ASX>

fact that you have an incompatible

browser version. You need Internet

A sample ASX file, and what users will see,

as shown below

Explorer version 5.0 and above to view.

When you start Windows Media Administrator for the first time, click on "Add
Server" button to create a video server to
administer. Make sure that the name of
this video server is the same as the
machine name. Then proceed to
"Configure Server - Unicast Publishing
Point" and add a directory to the home
alias. Make sure that the directory added
is created after that. Upload all ASF
videos to this directory. To test the video
using Windows Media Player, go to the
"File" menu and select the "Open" menu.
Enter the following syntax:
mms://vod_machine_name/
test_video_name.asf

Video-On
Demand Icon

Video
Title

Organization
Icon

Move
cursor
over this
region to
view
abstract

Example
mms://vod.panasia.org.sg/test.asf

Video Status
Total Video Length

A sample video file

Adding ASX File Type To Web Server

Make sure you add the ASX file type to the Web Server MIME type. Otherwise, you
may be prompted to save the unknown file type to the hard disc instead of spawning
the Windows Media Player.
Example
type=video/x-ms-asf

exts=asf,asx

Pan Asia Networking is an

initiative of the International
Development Research Centre
(IDRC), a public corporation
created by the Parliament of
Canada to help researchers and
communities in the developing
world find solutions to their social, economic
and environmental problems.

A sample of the ASX type in Netscape Web Server configuration file

Contact

Calling Up ASX File In HTML

<a href="filename.asx">Clickable Link Description</a>

Ms Maria Ng Lee Hoon

Senior Regional Program Officer
International Development Research Centre
Regional Office for Southeast and East Asia

Example
<a href="idrc_grameen.asx">Grameen - Small Loans, Big Leaps</a>

Tanglin PO Box 101

Singapore 912404

Include this code in the body of a HTML page, and you have created the first video-

Tel: 65-235 1344

on-demand service on the Internet!

Fax: 65-235 1849

E-mail: MNg@idrc.org.sg
http://www.PanAsia.org.sg

Summary
With the right equipment and facility, anyone can create digital video streams for

Mr Renald Lafond

viewing on the Internet from conventional VHS tapes. You can substitute the video

Senior Program Specialist

capture card and software with the products of your preferred choice. However, do be
careful about copyright and other legal issues.

International Development Research Centre

Head Office
PO Box 8500, Ottawa, Ontario

Pan Asia Networking Video-on-Demand Library

Visit the Pan Asia Networking Video-On-Demand Library at
http://www.panasia.org.sg/vod to view streamed videos on a wide range
of development topics contributed by our research partners in Asia Pacific.

Author:

Canada K1G 3H9

Tel: 1-613-236 6163
Fax: 1-613-567 7749
E-mail: RLafond@idrc.ca
http://www.idrc.ca

Dominic Soh, Systems Development Architect, Pan Asia Networking Program,

International Development Research Centre, http://www.panasia.org.sg

Reviewers: the technical team of GetIT Multimedia.com., Singapore,

http://www.getit-multimedia.com

and Les Cuff of Collaborative Network Technologies, Newfoundland, Canada,

http://www.colabnet.nf.ca.

References

Pan Asia Networking, December 2001.

This publication may be reproduced for
non-commercial purposes. Acknowledgement
to Pan Asia Networking and the author
must be retained.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/EN/default.asp
Windows Media Home
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/tourwmtools.asp
Tour of Microsoft Windows Media Tools
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windosmedia/en/support/FAQ-STRM.asp
Windows Media Services FAQ
http://www.dazzle.com
Dazzle Multimedia, the video capture card manufacturer
http://www.ulead.com/
Ulead, the video editor software provider