Expression Encoder: Publishing Video to Silverlight Streaming Service
Expression Encoder v1.0 supports custom publishing plug-ins. This article provides a step-by-step tutorial for using the new preview release of the Silverlight Streaming Publishing Plug-in for Expression Encoder. Follow the steps below to import a video, encode the video and publish it to the Silverlight Streaming Service by Windows Live. One it is on the service you can add your rich media Silverlight experience to your web site or blog and let Microsoft pay the hosting freight.
What do you need to know?
Expression Encoder - If you are unfamiliar with Expression Encoder, please watch the free training videos on using Expression Encoder. The Intro video is twelve minutes long and after watching it you can easily complete the following tutorial.
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/kc/resources.aspx?product=encoder&type=video
Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live - Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live offers a free streaming and application hosting solution for delivering high-quality, cross-platform, cross-browser, media-enabled rich interactive applications (RIAs). While the service is in pre-release, storage and delivery is free up to 4 GB, with outbound streaming up to 700 Kbps. As the service moves out of Beta, developers/designers will have continued use of the service with up to 1 million minutes of free video streaming at 700 Kpbs per site per month. Unlimited streaming will also be available for free with advertising, or with payment of a nominal fee for the service for use without advertising.
Setup:
Additional:
Demo:
Open Expression Encoder:
- File/Import a video (Expression Encoder imports QuickTime, AVI, MPEG and more…)
Note: To save time, import a WMV file and choose SOURCE as the encoding profile
- If you are using WMV and Source Profile, you can add metadata and choose a Silverlight Player Template without having to re-encode and recompress your video. If you add a leading or trailing clip you will force a re-encode of the video.
- If you are using another file input format (AVI, MOV…), select one of the preset encoding profiles. You can tweak the settings to adjust the quality. Check out the intro training video and explore the A/B Compare tool.
- In the Output Tab/Job Output select a Silverlight Template (E.g., Console)
- Encode the file
In the Output Tab of Expression Encoder, below the Job Output section there is a new set of Options titled: PUBLISH (If you do not see this, the Silverlight Streaming Plug-in is not installed).
- Select Publish To: Silverlight Streaming
- You will see the following
- Enter Your Silverlight Streaming Account and KEY
- Check Automatic Name. If you choose your own names make sure the name has no spaces.
- If you have encoded a project during the current Expression Encoder session, the Publish button will be active.
- Click PUBLISH
- Once publishing is complete, you will get additional UI that has the iframe code you can paste in to your web page. You can also see previously published apps as the Preview window is hosting the browser in its window. You can play the video from the Preview window.
- Now your Silverlight media experience application is hosted on the Silverlight Streaming service. You can login to your Silverlight Streaming account and preview the app from a test page on your Silverlight Streaming account.
https://silverlight.live.com/?wa=wsignin1.0
Publish to Live Spaces
- If you want to insert your Silverlight media player into a blog post, launch Windows Live Writer
- Select Insert/Insert Silverlight Streaming Application
- Enter your account info
- Select Refresh to retrieve the list of applications that you have posted to the Silverlight Streaming Service.
- Choose an Application.
- Add some text to your blog entry
- PUBLISH to your “Space” or Blog.
- View your Silverlight application on the real live internet.
Once you have completed this tutorial, congratulations are in order. You have now officially experienced the dream of Software (Expression Encoder) + Services (Silverlight Streaming). If you have any questions about Expression Encoder, you can visit our user forums accessible from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=encoder
For questions on Silverlight or Silverlight Streaming, visit:
http://silverlight.net/forums/
Notes:
The maximum file size of your upload to Silverlight Streaming Service is 22MB. The ZIP file which contains your SLS project is larger than 22MB you will get an error message.
If you want to set up the player so that it does not automatically play when your page loads:
- After you have encoded your file, but before you publish to Silverlight Streaming, in the Job Output pane, select Open Job
- You will now see all of the files that compose a Silverlight rich media experience.
- Open startplayer.js in Notepad
- Change autoPlay to false
- Save
- Publish your media experience to Silverlight Streaming Service.
