Windows Media Streaming with DrivePool - Revision history

Alex: /* Summary */

2011-10-14T23:45:35Z

Summary

Alex: /* Adding Video Format Support */

2011-10-14T23:44:58Z

Adding Video Format Support

Alex at 23:37, 14 October 2011

2011-10-14T23:37:34Z

Alex: /* MKV as video */

2011-10-14T23:31:26Z

MKV as video

Alex: /* Video formats */

2011-10-14T23:28:48Z

Video formats

Alex at 23:08, 14 October 2011

2011-10-14T23:08:28Z

Alex: Created page with "== What is media streaming? == Media streaming is not available on the Small Business Server but only on the Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essential..."

2011-10-14T22:49:19Z

Created page with "== What is media streaming? == Media streaming is not available on the Small Business Server but only on the Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essential..."

New page

== What is media streaming? ==
Media streaming is not available on the Small Business Server but only on the Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

In a nutshell, media streaming allows you to stream photos / music / videos to other devices or software.

That's kind of a broad description, so I'll give you a few concrete examples:

* You want to stream a video from your server to another PC in the house.
* You would like to stream some media to your xbox.
* You would like to watch an HD video on your network media player connected to your TV (such as a WD TV Live).

=== What kind of devices can you stream to? ===
DLNA compliant devices (and UPnP AV compliant devices).

=== What about codecs? ===
The media streaming system on WSS will re-encode the video on the fly if the target device doesn't support the required codec. It should work 100% of the time when you're pulling video from the server, as long as windows media player can read the format on the server.

There is another thing called the "Play To" feature, which is a little more complicated. This allows one device to play to another device. Using the "Play To" feature is a little more unreliable, and might not work all the time due to codecs, so I recommend you make believe that it's not there.

=== Does it work with DrivePool? ===

Yes. You can stream media directly from the pool. You simply enable media streaming on the pooled folder in server settings.

=== What can go wrong? ===

Media streaming as it's implemented on WSS is fairly complex and has a lot of moving pieces that have to all work in tandem. Sometimes, one of these pieces falls out of sync with the others and strange things start to happen such as not being able to access movies that you see in the list of available media, or seeing doubles of everything and only one copy actually working.

==== The fix ====
To resolve this and other media streaming related issues on the Windows Server Solutions family of Operating Systems I've just posted a new WSS Troubleshooter. This is a single EXE wizard that you place on the server and run. For now it has but a single task, Reset media streaming. Eventually it will have more repair tasks as we discover other things that can be fixed in an automated way.

This particular repair task is not only applicable to DrivePool but can be run on any WSS server, but it does have some special logic built-in for handling DrivePool folders.

Download on this page:
[[StableBit_DrivePool#Windows_Server_Solutions_Troubleshooter]]

=== Video Formats ===
It's worth mentioning that even though Microsoft's implementation of media streaming will transcode the video on the fly if the destination device doesn't support the codec natively, it will only do so if it can read the actual media file in the first place.

One common format that the server can't read is MKV. So any MKV files that you might have will NOT stream with the built in media streaming, out of the box. There is a solution to this, I'll talk about it in the next post.

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 Here are the necessary downloads one more time:
 #http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack - DivX codec pack.
-#[http://dl.covecube.com/Assets/Reg/v7-WMP11-MKV-MKA-x64_On.reg Enable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)] - Enable MKV as video, MKA as audio.
+#[http://dl.covecube.com/Assets/Reg/v7-WMP11-MKV-MKA-x64_On.reg Enable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)] - Enable MKV as video, MKA as audio (registry patch).
 #http://ac3filter.net/wiki/AC3Filter - Transcode AC3 / DTS multi-channel audio.

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:44, 14 October 2011
Line 65:		Line 65:

	You should reboot the server after installing.		You should reboot the server after installing.
		+
		+	=== Summary ===
		+	After you've installed the DivX codec pack, applied the MKV registry patch and installed the AC3 / DTS filter your media server is now a more capable general purpose DLNA server. You will be able to stream videos to all the various DLNA devices and transcode the video for devices that don't have the necessary codecs, even with multi-channel DTS / AC3 audio.
		+
		+	Here are the necessary downloads one more time:
		+	#http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack - DivX codec pack.
		+	#[http://dl.covecube.com/Assets/Reg/v7-WMP11-MKV-MKA-x64_On.reg Enable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)] - Enable MKV as video, MKA as audio.
		+	#http://ac3filter.net/wiki/AC3Filter - Transcode AC3 / DTS multi-channel audio.

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 [[StableBit_DrivePool#Windows_Server_Solutions_Troubleshooter|Windows Server Solutions Troubleshooter]]
-=== Video formats ===
+== Adding Video Format Support ==
 It's worth mentioning that even though Microsoft's implementation of media streaming will transcode the video on the fly if the destination device doesn't support the codec natively, it will only do so if it can read the actual media file in the first place.
@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 The folks at DivX have cracked this nut and have developed a codec pack that works well with the new framework and adds support for streaming MKVs using the built-in media streaming framework. It's a free download so just grab this EXE and install it on your server.
-==== MKV as video ====
+=== MKV as video ===
 Unfortunately, just installing the DivX codec pack doesn't make Windows Media Player classify .MKV files as video files. In order to do that you will need to apply a registry patch.
@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 '''Make sure to run the registry file from a 64-bit application such as Windows Explorer. Running this from within a 32-bit application such as Total Commander will not apply the settings correctly.'''
-==== Audio ====
+=== Audio ===
 There is one additional gotcha regarding audio codecs. Even though the DivX codec pack will add support for the popular MKV format it will not add support for decoding DTS or AC3 audio. Those are very popular formats for encoding multi-channel surround sound. This will not be a problem when your DLNA player supports those codecs, but it will become an issue if the server needs to transcode the video for playback on a device that doesn't support the right codecs.

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 Unfortunately, just installing the DivX codec pack doesn't make Windows Media Player classify .MKV files as video files. In order to do that you will need to apply a registry patch.
-* [[Enable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)]]
+* [http://dl.covecube.com/Assets/Reg/v7-WMP11-MKV-MKA-x64_On.reg Enable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)]
-* [[Disable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)]]
+* [http://dl.covecube.com/Assets/Reg/v7-WMP11-MKV-MKA-x64_Off.reg Disable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)]
 Just download the ''Enable'' .reg file to the server and double click on it to apply the changes. Then restart the server.

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:28, 14 October 2011
Line 46:		Line 46:

	The folks at DivX have cracked this nut and have developed a codec pack that works well with the new framework and adds support for streaming MKVs using the built-in media streaming framework. It's a free download so just grab this EXE and install it on your server.		The folks at DivX have cracked this nut and have developed a codec pack that works well with the new framework and adds support for streaming MKVs using the built-in media streaming framework. It's a free download so just grab this EXE and install it on your server.
		+
		+	==== MKV as video ====
		+	Unfortunately, just installing the DivX codec pack doesn't make Windows Media Player classify .MKV files as video files. In order to do that you will need to apply a registry patch.
		+
		+	* [[Enable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)]]
		+	* [[Disable MKV / MKA as Video / Audio in Windows Media Player 11 (x64)]]
		+
		+	Just download the ''Enable'' .reg file to the server and double click on it to apply the changes. Then restart the server.
		+
		+	'''Make sure to run the registry file from a 64-bit application such as Windows Explorer. Running this from within a 32-bit application such as Total Commander will not apply the settings correctly.'''

	==== Audio ====		==== Audio ====

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 Download on this page:
-[[StableBit_DrivePool#Windows_Server_Solutions_Troubleshooter]]
+[[StableBit_DrivePool#Windows_Server_Solutions_Troubleshooter|Windows Server Solutions Troubleshooter]]
-=== Video Formats ===
+=== Video formats ===
 It's worth mentioning that even though Microsoft's implementation of media streaming will transcode the video on the fly if the destination device doesn't support the codec natively, it will only do so if it can read the actual media file in the first place.
-One common format that the server can't read is MKV. So any MKV files that you might have will NOT stream with the built in media streaming, out of the box. There is a solution to this, I'll talk about it in the next post.
+One common format that the server can't read is MKV. So any MKV files that you might have will NOT stream with the built in media streaming, out of the box.