Programming VOD from a server

[verwayne]

I'm having brain fade right now and can't recall the proper name for this... too many birthdays. I am building a library of over 200+ wmv files that I'd like to program to run completely on their own with a scheduling program. I want to be able to program the order of playing for up to ten days or what ever works best (or to just keep replaying itself) and walk away from it until it is ready to be re-programmed again.

If I am lucky, I am a third grader when it comes to applying codes to a server, so I'll need this well explained. Let's assume a few things. I have all of my videos in a folder on the server named 'video' and the wmv's are named like ac51798.wmv and so on.

Can some one give me the coding conventions to set this up and where it goes in the server, show me where to add or subtract to lengthen or shorten the listings, and how to make it shut off if I need it to do so. I am also wondering about 'quality.' For my purposes, I'd like to encode these at about 1500 but have them play at a lower level of quality, lets say about 370 or so. Is that possible or do I need to make them the quality level I want?

I have a couple other questions but I'll wait for this one. I appreciate any input. You may post me here or off forum at streamnetvideo@gmail.com

Thanks!
V

[Dave]

Sounds like you are talking about server side playlists there, but you don't mention what kind of server you are using to deliver the content.

If you are using WMS then there is a playlist editor built into the mmc admin plug-in which will do most of the hard work for you.

If you don't have access to the admin tools on the WMS server then you can always use the wms9edit.exe playlist editor which is included in the Windows Media Resource Kit.

You can handcraft them of course as they are just SMIL 2.0 files, and there's a basic example of what they look like at:
Programming Playlists

The playlist reference is available at:
Playlist Reference
which will give you a list of the elements and attributes you can use do do all sorts of things with.

If you want to know more about SMIL in general, then I suggest taking a look at this book:
SMIL 3.0
or rather its predecessor book titled 'SMIL 2.0' (orange cover).

If you associate the playlist with a publishing point as opposed to a file, then you can enable/disable it as required.

As for encoding, one usually encodes at the rate it is expected to be delivered at, which often means multiple rates if you are delivering to an unknown audience. Sometimes people will wrap several streams up into one multiple bit rate file (MBR) for convenience and let the player/server negotiate the delivery rate.

(On a side note, SMIL 2.0 supports the use of in-line system test attributes one of which (systemBitrate) tests the available bitrate and allows for conditional programming based upon available bandwidth reported by the client, however unfortunately I don't think WMS supports it.)

Dave

[Dave]

Sounds like you are talking about server side playlists there, but you don't mention what kind of server you are using to deliver the content.

If you are using WMS then there is a playlist editor built into the mmc admin plug-in which will do most of the hard work for you.

If you don't have access to the admin tools on the WMS server then you can always use the wms9edit.exe playlist editor which is included in the Windows Media Resource Kit.

You can handcraft them of course as they are just SMIL 2.0 files, and there's a playlist reference available at:
Playlist Reference
which will give you a list of the elements and attributes you can use do do all sorts of things with.

If you want to know more about SMIL in general, then I suggest taking a look at this book:
SMIL 3.0
or rather its predecessor book titled 'SMIL 2.0' (orange cover).

If you associate the playlist with a publishing point as opposed to a file, then you can enable/disable it as required.

As for encoding, one usually encodes at the rate it is expected to be delivered at, which often means multiple rates if you are delivering to an unknown audience. Sometimes people will wrap several streams up into one multiple bit rate file (MBR) for convenience and let the player/server negotiate the delivery rate.

On a side note, SMIL 2.0 supports the use of in-line system test attributes one of which (systemBitrate) tests the available bitrate and allows for conditional programming based upon available bandwidth reported by the client, however unfortunately I don't think WMS supports it.

Dave

[verwayne]

Thanks Dave,
I have a 2003 Windows Standard Edition Web server. I'll check that out. I have figured out a lot on my own and by reading the various things that were going on via the email list but coding was never my forte. I may PM you if that is alright with you.
V