Project Description

Adaptive Streaming with Windows Azure Blobs Uploader makes it easy for content owners to host streaming videos using Windows Azure storage and the Windows Azure CDN in a format compatible with Silverlight's Smooth Streaming player. It's written in C# and features both a command-line tool and a reusable library.

Features

The Adaptive Streaming for Windows Azure Blobs Uploader allows you to:

• Upload video content to Windows Azure via a command-line tool (AdaptiveStreamingAzure.exe)
• Upload video content from within Expression Encoder 3 via a publisher plugin.
• Easily publish Smooth Streaming content produced with Expression Encoder, including player templates.
• Automatically enable cross-domain access for easy embedding of videos.
• Resume aborted uploads.
• Integrate with CDNs (including the Windows Azure CDN) and control their cache policies.
• Parallelize storage operations to decrease upload time.
• Automatically check for new versions of the software.

Getting Started

• Prerequisites:
• Smooth Streaming content (e.g. from Expression Encoder or by downloading the Big Buck Bunny sample).
• A Windows Azure storage account. (Note the account name and key.)
• To upload a video:
• Download and unzip the latest release.
• Run AdaptiveStreamingAzure.exe -d \video\directory -a myAccount -k myKey -p videos/myFirstVideo --launchBrowser.

Congratulations! If your content included a file called "default.html" or "index.html", your browser should open at the end of the upload to view your video.

Using the Expression Encoder Publishing Plugin

• Prerequisites:
• Expression Encoder 3 (full version) or Expression Encoder 4 (any version)
• Install:
• Download the binary drop and run EncoderPlugin\install.cmd from an elevated command prompt.
• To use:
• See this blog post for a full walkthrough.

Sample

To view a copy of Big Buck Bunny served from cdn.blog.smarx.com (a custom domain using the Windows Azure CDN), click here.

It uses the "Smooth Streaming Graphing" template in Expression Encoder 3, so you can click the little graph icon to see how the bitrate is changing while you watch.