1 Introduction

The Media Streaming Server system is a platform for streaming audio and video content to clients over the Internet or an intranet. These clients can be other computers or devices that play back the content by using a media player, or they can be other computers running media servers that proxy, cache, or redistribute content.

The Media Streaming Server (MSS) system is designed to deliver an end-to-end experience for components that are involved in the creation, distribution, and playback of audio and video content. The system enables administrators and content providers to create media solutions for corporate communications, training and education, e-commerce, commercial broadcast, and other uses. The Media Streaming Server system consists of a computer running a media encoder, a server running as a media server, and a number of client computers running media player clients. The encoder converts both live and prerecorded audio and video content to a media format. The server then distributes the content over a network or the Internet. The media player client then receives the content. To scale and meet network demands, the system can also include cache and proxy servers, and distribution servers.

In e-commerce scenarios, the Media Streaming Server system can require the support of Digital Rights Management (DRM) components to enable the administrator to securely encrypt the broadcast and download of content.

Each of the components in the system uses the member protocols to enable scenarios that range from live broadcast playback to on-demand playback.