1. Create Windows Media content and place it in the ASFROOT folder on the Windows Media Services server.
2. Open the Windows Media Administrator.
3. From the left side of the Administrator, select Unicast Publishing Points.
4. In the Broadcast Unicast Publishing Points section, clear the use wizard option. Click Broadcast, and then choose New.
5. For alias name, type a descriptive name.
6. For the path type, choose Remote Windows Media Station, and for the URL use msbd://localhost/alias (where alias is the same name you used in the previous step). This provides the connection point for Windows Media Player clients.
7. Next, on the left side of the administrator, choose Multicast Stations.
8. Click Stations, and then choose New.
 Read more... (336 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Many times, you may want to have a listener stream MP3s from your site, but you don’t have any streaming software set up. One solution is to create an M3U file which acts as a playlist that opens up with many mainstream MP3 players such as iTunes and Winamp. Following is an example of an M3U playlist:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:199,Radiohead - Creep
http://www.yoursite.com/radiohead-creep.mp3
#EXTINF:217,Pink Floyd - Money
http://www.yoursite.com/pinkfloyd-money.mp3

The .m3u file can be placed on any web server, and linked to a web page with the standard a href tag. For instance, to link to a file named “playlist.m3u” from a web page in the same directory with the file, the link could be:

<a href="playlist.m3u">Play my playlist</a>  Read more... (219 words, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Decks and Cards

WAP sites are generally one file that contains many sub-pages within the master WML page. Each page is defined with a special tag called “<card>”. This is why WML pages are known as “decks”, because they contain multiple cards. Each card can contain text, links, input fields, tasks, images, and more. You can provide navigation from card to card with links that work just like HTML anchors (with a # sign to indicate the id of the card.)

Example WAP code

Here is an example WAP site with two cards, each one containing a link to a different type of 3gp mobile video.  Read more... (293 words, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)

Note: for GravityLab Multimedia customers, this method only applies to our Live Broadcasting packages. Pseudo-streaming is available with all standard on-demand video hosting accounts, and does not require rtmp configuration.

1. Download the free JW Player from www.jeroenwijering.com and unzip the file somewhere on your computer
2. Open the newly created directory, you should see several files. Upload the following files to your web server, or to your GravityLab home directory.
   • readme.html
   • swfobject.js
   • player.swf
3. Open readme.html in your favorite HTML or text editor.
4. Find the code that begins with <div id=”container”> and ends with </script>. This is the section of code you’ll need to edit and then copy and paste into your own page.
 Read more... (214 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

QuickTime and Darwin Streaming Server support two primary transport methods for streaming:

1. RTSP/RTP streams use standard IETF streaming protocols to stream video and audio to clients. The Streaming Server supports QuickTime .mov, MPEG-4 .mp4 and 3G .3gp files for on-demand streaming. In addition, the Streaming Server can reflect live streams and playlists using Session Description Protocol .sdp files. Linking to RTSP/RTP streams is described in the Embedding RTSP/RTP Streams section below
2. MP3 streams used the Shoutcast protocol for streaming mp3 files over http. The Streaming Server supports streaming MP3 playlists from locally stored MP3 files and reflecting live MP3 streams from Shoutcast compatible webcasting software. Linking to MP3 playlists and live MP3 webcasts is described in Linking to mp3 streams below.
 Read more... (988 words, estimated 3:57 mins reading time)

Quicktime offers a feature called “Kiosk Mode” that removes the rightmost menu arrow on the QuickTime player which also removes the “Save as” functionality. Kiosk mode is an option that can be set for a QuickTime movie, so that even users who have QuickTime Professional cannot copy the source of a movie. To enable kiosk mode, add a param tag to your object tag, named “kioskmode” with a value of “true”. Also add kioskmode=”true” to the embed tag.

Demo source code:

<br /> <object height="320" width="200"><param name="kioskmode" value="true"><param name="src" value="my.mp3"><param name="autoplay" value="false"><param name="controller" value="true"><embed height="50" src="http://dna.gravlab.com/your_audio.mp3" type="video/quicktime" width="200" controller="true" autoplay="false" kioskmode="true"><br /> </object><br />

You can convert a song to a different file format while keeping a copy of the original. For example, you can save a copy of an uncompressed song file such as AIFF or WAV to a compressed format like MP3, AAC, or Apple Lossless Encoder.
Saving a copy of a song in a new file format

When converting from a compressed to uncompressed file format (for example, from MP3 to AIFF) you shouldn’t notice any reduction in sound quality. However, when converting between compressed formats (for example MP3 and AAC), you may notice a reduction in the sound quality. For the best results, if you want your music encoded in a different file format, you should import the music again from the original source using the new encoding format.  Read more... (548 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

To display a banner image (along with a link to more information) while video is rendered in Windows Media Player, add an entry to a Windows Media metafile (a file with a .wvx file name extension) by doing the following:

1. In a text editor such as Notepad, add the following basic code while substituting the example server, paths, and file names with the appropriate information:
   <ASX version = "3.0">
<TITLE>Sample Demo</TITLE>
<BANNER HREF="http://WebServerName/Images/Banner.bmp">
<ABSTRACT>Learn more about our company</ABSTRACT>
<MOREINFO HREF="http://WebServerName.com"/>
</BANNER>
<ENTRY>
<REF HREF="mms://ServerName/PublishingPointName/Video.wmv"/>
</ENTRY>
</ASX>
   In the previous code, the HREF attribute of the BANNER element has the value http://WebServerName/Images/Banner.bmp that refers to a banner image (194 pixels wide by 32 pixels high) that is stored on a Web server. The text contained in the ABSTRACT element displays as a ToolTip when the user hovers over the banner graphic. Finally, when a user clicks the banner graphic, the URL provided in the MOREINFO element opens in a Internet browser, such as Internet Explorer. In this example, one digital media file named Video.wmv, which is stored on a computer running Windows Media Services, plays back in the Player.

 Read more... (237 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

For those whose businesses rely on the Internet to produce revenue the latest Google update, nicknamed Jagger, was one of the biggest events in the past couple years (probably since the Florida Update of 2003). With this 3-part update Google has essentially changed many of the rules and have thrown the SEO community for a loop.

In this update there are a few key areas that have impacted the way sites rank and how an SEO (or a business owner optimizing their own site) needs to approach and address the various components. The key areas that have been affected with this update are:

• The history of your web pages
• The way backlinks are counted
• Site content & structure
 Read more... (1394 words, estimated 5:35 mins reading time)

To embed an object into an HTML document, the object class ID is required. The class ID for Windows Media Player 7, 9, 10 and 11 is clsid:6BF52A52-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6.

Insert the following code into your HTML document to embed Windows Media Player 7 and later:

<OBJECT id="VIDEO" width="320" height="240" CLASSID="CLSID:6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6" type="application/x-oleobject"><br /> <PARAM NAME="URL" VALUE="your_video_url_here"><br /> <PARAM NAME="SendPlayStateChangeEvents" VALUE="True"><br /> <PARAM NAME="AutoStart" VALUE="True"><br /> <PARAM name="uiMode" value="none"><br /> <PARAM name="PlayCount" value="9999"><br /> </OBJECT><br />