Smooth streaming enables intelligent streaming of video online. It works by switching video quality in real time depending on the speed of your broadband connection, often producing buffer free video. The ability to play Smooth Streaming video is included in Microsoft's Silverlight technology, automatically adapting to the broadband speed and computer power of each viewer.
So, if you're watching a video online over a Wi-Fi network, and suddenly the connection slows, Smooth streaming will automatically adapt the video's quality in real-time. What's more it works with full HD video, too, so viewers with high bandwidth connections and modern computers can experience full 1080p high definition video quality, while others with lower bandwidth or older computers receive the appropriate stream for their connection and hardware.
To create Smooth streaming presentations, the same content is encoded at several quality levels, with each level in its own complete file, using an encoding tool like Expression Encoder.
Content is then delivered using a Smooth Streaming-enabled IIS (Internet Information Services) server over HTTP. Once the web server receives a request for media, it dynamically creates the cacheable fragments from the video files and delivers the best content possible to each end user. The benefit of this approach is that the people the content came from only need to manage complete files rather than the thousands of segmented bits of content.
"As online video continues to rapidly evolve, Microsoft is proud to offer a premier end-to-end Smooth streaming solution that content providers can leverage to deliver true HD-quality, highly scalable and secure online video to their customers," said Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft during the Smooth streaming launch last year.
Smooth streaming uses the simple but powerful concept of delivering small chunks of video - typically two seconds - and checking that each part has arrived at the right time and quality. If there is a problem, the next chunk of video delivered will be of a lesser quality. Conversely, if there is scope to up the quality, this will happen too.
The technology was first used by NBC to deliver on-demand video of the 2008 Summer Olympics and again for the winter Olympics in Vancouver. "NBCOlympics.com has once again chosen Silverlight to stream the Olympics in high definition," said Perkins Miller, Senior Vice President of Digital Media, NBC Sports & Olympics. "We'll be able to deliver a continuous, high-quality online experience that mirrors the quality of the home viewing experience that our customers have come to expect." Stephen Fry's interview at .net magazine was also produced using Smooth streaming.
The end result is that all viewers enjoy an uninterrupted streaming experience.
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