Microsoft Smooth Streaming - How to Play

Archived
1

Now at firmware 4.7 we can play Microsoft Smooth Streaming videos… the question is how can we play that videos?

Thank you!

2

We need a xml sample and a .brs file for the solution. Plus, what is the best standalone software product to create the content to disk versus live.

DA

3

I’m waiting for it, but I don’t know when Roku Team publish this. I’m waiting also for documentation…

4

Here is where I saw that 4.7 has it ready

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=49500&p=337869&hilit=microsoft+smooth#p337869

5

yeah… I read too… but where is documentation? When Roku Team publish this… Next week? Next Month? That’s the question…

6

I have been waiting for this from long back and was very happy to see the announcement. But, still no info/documentation. I hope we will get it soon…

ROKU team may be busy in publishing few channels which supports Smooth Streaming format…

I hope the Smooth Streaming is wide open for the public and not restricted only for the premier partners..

7

Hello,

Smooth Streaming is available through the SDK to all developers with firmware 4.7. To tell the media player you are passing in a Smooth Stream manifest URL, set the “StreamFormat” paramter to “ism”.


    videoClip = CreateObject("roAssociativeArray")
    videoClip.StreamBitrates = [0]    'adaptive
    videoClip.StreamUrls = ["http://playready.directtaps.net/smoothstreaming/SSWSS720H264/SuperSpeedway_720.ism/Manifest"]
    videoClip.StreamQualities = ["SD"]       'adaptive, so make sure it plays on both SD and HD
    videoClip.StreamFormat = "ism"       'indicates Microsoft Smooth Stream
    videoClip.title = "Title to appear during buffering and in HUD"

    videoScreen.SetContent(videoClip)
    videoScreen.show()

We are working on documentation updates that should be published in the next week or two.

Cheers.

8

Hello Jon,

Thank you so much for sharing the code and making it simple for the developers to change from HLS to Smooth streaming. I have two questions and I hope you won’t mind answering them:

  1. In case of HLS streams, ROKU buffers certain fragments (I think 10+) before playing the stream. Is this the same for Smooth streaming also? Usually, when we play on PCs, smooth streaming has the fastest start time. This is the main advantage for looking into Smooth streaming.

  2. IIS Media services supports composite manifest. When contacted Microsoft, they mentioned that Smooth Streaming Client Porting kit (which ROKU is using) won’t support this feature and need to implement on the device using playlist. Is this supported currently on ROKU?

Thank you for your time!

9

Thank you very much RokuJon! :wink:

10

For all roku 1 users, we still need to have the streams available for HLS in addition to “ism”

11

“destruk” wrote:
For all roku 1 users, we still need to have the streams available for HLS in addition to “ism”

Yes. But, will there be any update to ROKU1 boxes with ism support in SDK v5? I read somewhere that, they want to keep all the boxes same by v5.

BTB, is it possible to get the statistics of the different types of ROKU boxes? It will help us to decide whether to support HLS or not.

12

Does the ism streamformat accept both ism and isml files?

13

  1. In case of HLS streams, ROKU buffers certain fragments (I think 10+) before playing the stream. Is this the same for Smooth streaming also? Usually, when we play on PCs, smooth streaming has the fastest start time. This is the main advantage for looking into Smooth streaming.

  2. IIS Media services supports composite manifest. When contacted Microsoft, they mentioned that Smooth Streaming Client Porting kit (which ROKU is using) won’t support this feature and need to implement on the device using playlist. Is this supported currently on ROKU?

  1. We have been making optimizations to HLS throughout development in each firmware release and in 4.7 the initial buffering time seems fairly close across these two formats. We buffer based on bitrate and not segment count.

  2. Composite manifests are not supported as Microsoft confirmed currently. You application can read the manifest and play back the individual clips in the playlist automatically, but you will experience a rebuffer event between each clip.

Cheers.

14

We do not currently have plans to back port the Smooth Streaming feature to the older Roku 1 models. This feature will require the newer device models running firmware 4.7 and later.

Cheers.

15

Does the ism streamformat accept both ism and isml files?

Yes, we support both vod and live streaming today.

16

Thank you so much for your detailed reply Jon!

I am able to play smooth streams on ROKU without modifying single line of code (just modified format type and URL in the XML feed). I am testing the stream from past 8 hours and I do not see any issues. Bit rate switching also working fine.

Well done ROKU team!!!

17

Hi Streamingguy, I hate to be a total noob, but where exactly are we placing this bit of code. I’m trying to access my Smooth Streaming Feeds, have the SDK downloaded, but unsure of where I should place that bit of code.

Thank you

18

No problem.. I can understand that as ROKU hasn’t updated their SDK…

I hope you are using XMLs for feed. If so, you will have hls.

Just replace “hls” with “ism” and update the streamURL with something like “http://x.x.x.x/stream.isml/manifest”.

Let me know if you have any issues.

19

Tested and works great with the link above.

20

Hello Bandal,

As you mentioned yesterday (hope you have updated your post), few streams are not working, even though they work fine on Silvelright player.

You can pick the Smooth streaming URLs from Microsoft’s channel 9 page. They use Smooth streaming by default when you are on desktops/silverlight.

http://channel9.msdn.com

I think it will be good if ROKU comes up with detailed error message instead of single liners.