Archiving allows you to save the output of a broadcast
publishing point to a Windows Media file. This feature provides a
way to make permanent records of live broadcasts. In an Internet
Protocol Television (IPTV) scenario, however, archiving has a
number of potential uses beyond simple storage, including the
ability to automate the rebroadcast of a stream for different time
zones.
The Play While Archiving feature can be used to allow clients to
read from archived files as the server writes to them, allowing you
to easily set up a scenario in which viewers can play a live
broadcast stream from the beginning before a broadcast has
finished. For example, a viewer who tunes in 20 minutes late to
watch a live broadcast can be given the choice of either picking up
the live broadcast in progress or viewing a rebroadcast from the
beginning with a 20-minute delay.
Notes
You can create a cache/proxy plug-in that uses
the Play While Archiving feature to read from a file in its cache
while it also writes to the file. In previous versions of Windows
Media Services, a file had to be completely cached before it could
be read. Play While Archiving, therefore, can increase the number
of cache hits—the number of users who can stream from the
cache/proxy server instead of the origin server. For more
information about creating custom cache/proxy plug-ins, see the
Windows Media Services SDK available on the Windows Media SDK
Components Web page at the Microsoft Web site.
Play While Archiving is available only if
Windows Media Services 9 Series is running on the following
editions of the operating system: Windows Server 2003, Enterprise
Edition, or Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition. If you are
running Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition, this feature is not
supported.
Notes