John A. Bocharov's Blog

Today marks the start of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas, and we brought our “A” game with a press release announcing the immediate availability of IIS Media Services 2.0 RTW (WebPI, x86, x64), including the first full production release of Smooth Streaming. You can try the experience for yourself on iis.net, and learn more on the media landing page.

Announced at the MIX09 keynote, Live Smooth Streaming was released for download (WebPI, x86, x64) on Wednesday. You don’t need a live encoder to try this at home. Read below for the how…

It is my pleasure to announce that the Smooth Streaming Beta is now available. Get it here for x86, x64, or using the Web Platform Installer (see below for details). In case you’re hearing about Smooth Streaming for the first time here... the technology adapts the bit rate of the content in throughout playback to provide your viewers with an experience that starts up instantly, seeks instantly, and delivers the best quality that network and CPU conditions will allow for any point in time. It does this while communicating using fully cacheable requests and responses, so that the power of massive HTTP caching infrastructures can provide your viewers with the best Quality of Service. Check out the extension page, the initial post, or Smooth HD to learn more.

Since we announced Smooth Streaming in October, the team has been hard at work preparing the feature for broad public release (the answer to the obvious question of “When?” is “Very soon!”... please stay tuned for details) and addressing feedback from customers in the early adoption program. But, of course, the Web (and especially the blogosphere) never stands still: