Encoding Smooth Streaming videos

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Encoding Smooth Streaming with Microsoft's Expression Encoder 3

The Microsoft Expression Encoder 3 (plus the IIS Streaming extension) is available at:  http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Encoder_Overview.aspx.

Import the movie file you want to encode (in our case 'oceans.mov') and select the 'H.264 IIS Smooth Streaming - 720p CBR' preset. Both Adobe Flash and Silverlight support the H.264 Main profile, but select the H.264 Baseline profile if you also want your videos to play on the iPhone.

Also uncheck the 'Create separate file per stream' box. This generates one fragmented mp4 file with 9 tracks (1 audio + 8 video).

Hit the Encode button.

Note: The SmoothStreamingSamplePlayer.xap (beta 2 from the Player SDK) plays audio at 48kHz even when it's encoded at 44k1Hz. If this is one of your target players, set the 'Sample Rate' field to '48kHz'

After the encoding is finished, we have to process the file with the commandline tool mp4split. Assuming that the encoded file is stored in 't:\tmp' and our webserver's document root is at 'c:\inetpub\wwwroot'.

Create a directory in the document root:

cd c:\inetpub\wwwroot
mkdir oceans.ism
cd oceans.ism

Process the file so we can also use it for playback on the iPhone and Flash:

mp4split -o oceans.ismv t:\tmp\oceans.ismv

Create the server manifest file used by the Smooth Streaming module:

mp4split -o oceans.ism oceans.ismv

Create the client manifest file used by the Silverlight and Flash player:

mp4split -o oceans.ismc oceans.ismv

Create the iPhone playlist:

mp4split -o oceans.m3u8 oceans.ismv

Information & Questions

If you have any questions, feel free to write us a private mail.