Smooth Streaming and Live Smooth Streaming, both part of IIS Media Services 3.0, have been generating a lot of interest from content owners who want to provide a seamless viewing experience up to 1080p for their end users.  Even in the Beta stage of Live Smooth Streaming, there have been dozens of live trials at high-visibility events, such as the French Open and the FIFA Confederations Cup.  

Today, we issued a press release highlighting this momentum and giving a preview of what we'll be demonstrating at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam later this week.  To enable third parties who wish to build on IIS Smooth Streaming and the broader Microsoft media platform, we also released two specifications under the Community Promise Initiative:

• The IIS Smooth Streaming Transport Protocol Specification describes how live and on-demand Smooth Streaming audio/video content is distributed and cached over an HTTP network. 
• The Protected Interoperable File Format (PIFF) specification defines a standard multimedia file format for delivery and playback of protected multimedia content, and is highly compatible with IIS Smooth Streaming Transport.

To learn more, see the press release:  Microsoft Raises the Bar for Delivery of Live HD Online Video Using HTTP. 

 -Chris