You can distribute live broadcasts, or webcasts as they
are often called, by using Windows Media Services. You can either
produce new content for a live broadcast or simultaneously
broadcast content that is also being broadcast on the television or
radio. You can archive the live broadcast and make it available to
users on demand at a later time. Examples of live broadcasts
include news conferences, sporting events, and music concerts.
When implementing this scenario, consider the following:
Use a computer running Windows Media Encoder to encode content
into Windows Media Format and create an encoded stream. You can
then broadcast the stream from a Windows Media server. You can
download the latest version of Windows Media Encoder from the
Windows Media home page at the Microsoft Web site. For more information about
encoding, see Windows Media Encoder Help.
On a Windows Media server, create a broadcast publishing point
that uses the encoded stream as the data source. If you want to
switch from the live stream to a file, such as a file containing
advertising or prerecorded content, and then back to the live
content, create an exclusive playlist that uses script commands
from the encoder to initiate the stream switch. Consider using a
wrapper playlist to play some content before and after your live
broadcast. Wrapper playlists are commonly used for site branding,
welcome messages, and sponsor identification.
A webcast has a scheduled start time, which means that most
users will attempt to connect to it in a short period of time. By
creating a group in Windows Media Services, you can use several
Windows Media servers to distribute the load of connection
requests.
Let your users know that content is available. You can create a
link on your existing Web site that users can use to connect to
your publishing point and access your content. You can also create
a default Web page with a link to your content and then customize
the page to meet your needs.
