playlist buffer image

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jhoover@gmail.com - 29 May 2007 17:06 GMT

Is there a way in an smil playlist to have an image display while the
player is buffering the video? Even better would be having a very
short video play while a longer one buffers.

I'm using WMS using wsx playlist files. I think I've seen the tag
around somewhere, but I can't find it anywhere now.

Thanks for any help.

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TheBigDog - 30 May 2007 05:10 GMT

I am interested in the same thing, but I would like to use in case their
intended video is unavailable, that the playlist would go to a secondary file
and play a short, low bit rate video or display an image and some audio
indicating there was a problem playing their selection and that they should
try again later.

> Is there a way in an smil playlist to have an image display while the
> player is buffering the video? Even better would be having a very
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Thanks for any help.

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Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] - 30 May 2007 20:12 GMT

The answer's a little different here. You would use failover in the
WSX playlist to handle that :

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/mediaadvice/0068.m
spx#EPG

A example using reconnection and the SMIL switch element is
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms753592.aspx

You can see there a repeatCount used, if you need to retry connection
attempts to a live media encoder (if it's a file failing to play then
you probably wouldn't want to do that)

As noted in the articles, you'll need WS2003 standard, enterprise or
datacenter for any of that to work.

HTH
Cheers - Neil

>I am interested in the same thing, but I would like to use in case their
>intended video is unavailable, that the playlist would go to a secondary file
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>>
>> Thanks for any help.

------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

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Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] - 30 May 2007 20:07 GMT

>Is there a way in an smil playlist to have an image display while the
>player is buffering the video? Even better would be having a very
>short video play while a longer one buffers.
>
>I'm using WMS using wsx playlist files. I think I've seen the tag
>around somewhere, but I can't find it anywhere now.

Yes but you'll probably need to do it client side using an ASX file
which references your live stream. The setup I'd use would be

<asx version="3.0">
    <param name="PreBuffer" value="true" />
    <entry>
        <ref href="http://webserver.com/path_to/file.jpeg" />
        <duration value="00:00:02.00" />
        <param name="ShowWhileBuffering" value="true" />
    </entry>
    <entry>
        <ref href="rtsp://mediaserver.com/pulishingpoint" />
    </entry>
</asx>

There are 2 param elements there. The top level one instructs the
playlist to prebuffer subsequent entries. The second tells the image
to play-and-hold on screen while the next clip starts buffering.

We delay the stream by 2 seconds (say) by giving the image a duration,
which lets the client buffer plenty of content while showing the image

So linking to the ASX rather than directly to the stream in your embed
code would achieve the desired result.

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

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