If streaming on-demand content was indexed during encoding, they can use Seek functions (Fast-Forward and Rewind) on their player to jump to any part of the stream without waiting for a download to finish. Users that connect to a stream can start to play it almost immediately. This helps prevent the network from becoming overloaded and helps maintain system reliability. Streaming uses bandwidth more efficiently than downloading because it sends data over the network only at the speed that is necessary for the client to render it correctly.

It is especially useful for streaming large amounts of data over busy, congested networks and low-bandwidth connections. It provides high-quality streaming over a wide range of bandwidths to Windows Media Player and to Web browsers that use the Windows Media Player 9 Series ActiveX control or the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in. This section introduces the two primary Windows Server roles that are used to deliver digital media to clients:Ī Windows Media server is designed specifically for streaming on-demand and live digital media to clients. Introducing Windows Media servers and Web servers This article introduces the delivery methods and bandwidth-management capabilities of Windows Media servers and Web servers, two important aspects of media delivery to consider when you are trying to decide which server type to deploy for your delivery scenario. In non-multicast streaming scenarios, depending upon your business need, a Windows Media server or a Web server can both be viable options for digital media content delivery today.

With the broader availability of high-bandwidth networks and new media delivery features for IIS 7 and above, the differences that previously favored the use of a Windows Media server over a Web server for delivering digital media content have blurred. Clients use different methods to receive digital media content from Windows Media servers and Web servers: they stream digital media from a Windows Media server and download digital media from a Web server. You can deliver digital media audio and video files and live streams either from a Windows Media server (a server that is running Windows Media Services) or from a Web server (a server that is running Internet Information Services (IIS)).

Universal media server download