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Windows Media 9 Series is the term for the family of digital media software developed by Microsoft. All of the software is designed to work together to provide the optimal digital media experience.
Windows Media Services is a platform for streaming audio and video content to clients over the Internet or an intranet. These clients may be other computers or devices that play back the content using a player, such as Windows Media Player, or they may be other computers running Windows Media Services (called Windows Media servers) that are proxying, caching, or redistributing your content. Clients can also be custom applications that have been developed using the Windows Media Software Development Kit (SDK).
The content your Windows Media server streams to clients can be either a live stream or preexisting content, such as a digital media file. If you are planning to stream live content, your server will connect to encoding software, such as Windows Media Encoder, that is capable of broadcasting a live stream in a format supported by the server. You can also stream preexisting content that has been encoded by Windows Media Encoder, Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint® 2002, Windows Movie Maker, or many other third-party encoding programs.
To learn more about the basics of streaming using Windows Media Services, see Streaming media system overview.
For more information about Windows Media 9 Series, see "An overview of Windows Media 9 Series" on the Microsoft Web site.