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Streaming Media Servers: Page 8 of 15

Windows Media Server had the second-best score on our quality survey. Color looked slightly washed out, and text was fuzzier than Flash or QuickTime, but the action was smooth at all bit rates. We found the stream to be less stable than the other competitors, frequently stopping during playback and not recovering. Oddly, dropped streams seemed to have happened less often in our 2 percent packet loss test than in the zero packet loss test.

 

 

 


 

 

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We gave Windows Media Server high marks for its media and server management. A wizard made it easy to create a Web page with an embedded media player and to copy the HTML syntax to the clipboard. A playlist editor let us combine multiple media files, a directory of media, live encoders and other playlists into a stream. We used this tool to create interstitial ads and wrapper ads that appeared at the start and end of every stream.

 

Microsoft offers only IP access control, not user name/password, unless you want to use Windows Media DRM or tie user authentication into Active Directory. White- and blacklists of IP ranges may be set up. We successfully tested the access control mechanisms on a Network Computing subnet.

Real-time reporting is available through the standard Windows Performance Monitor application. We could look at connected players, bandwidth usage and error rates. Microsoft makes better use of graphics than Apple, but the data available from each is comparable. As with the other products, long-term reporting isn't available, but the log files contain extensive information, such as client type, playback statistics and access time.

Windows Media Server 9. Microsoft, (800) 642-7676. www.microsoft.com