14 DAY TRIAL // Smooth Streaming Extension for Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 has debuted into Beta stage this week, and is now available for download in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. The IIS7 extension is designed to allow upgrading a web server to what Microsoft is referring to as Smooth Streaming Servers. Via the Smooth Streaming Extension for IIS 7.0 and the default implementation of the Silverlight 2.0, the Smooth Streaming Servers will be able to offer visitors video content at high quality with no detrimental impact on performance.
“With this extension, video viewers can get much better experience by starting up instantly, seeking instantly, and getting the best quality that their network and CPU conditions will allow for any point in time. Smooth Streaming Extension for IIS7 does this utilizing the benefits of HTTP caching, and by communicating using cacheable requests and responses, providing the best Quality of Service,” revealed Guy Burstein, with the Developer & Platform Group, Microsoft Israel.
Smooth Streaming is designed to integrate seamlessly with IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008 or on Windows Vista SP1. At the same time, in order to simplify management options, the extension requires the IIS Management Console for Internet Information Services 7.0. According to Microsoft the extension is capable of adapting the quality of Silverlight content to the end users' infrastructure and hardware capabilities, in order to deliver continuous playback. Smooth Streaming has been tailored to take advantage of existing caching networks and HTTP caches.
“A few months ago, Microsoft together with Akamai, launched SmoothHD – a site that demonstrates this technology. You can watch high definition videos with no buffering time, and see how it dynamically checks what is the best bit rate that fits your network bandwidth,” Burstein added. IIS7 Smooth Streaming Beta is offered both as a component of the Web Platform Installer and as standalone downloads.
Smooth Streaming - Beta – x86 is available for download here. Smooth Streaming - Beta - x64 is available for download here.
Web Platform Installer Beta is available for download here.