Stremaing a wav file to embedded Windows Media Player (wmp)

Question

Hello,

I have some questions about wav files (located in virtual directory in IIS) and streaming to an ASP.NET web page with an embedded Windows Media Player.

1) Is the wav file streamed or does playback wait until the whole file is downloaded to the client?

2) If wav files are not streamed what are some options to do so?

3) For security purposes we need to prevent (or at least make it as difficult as possible) for someone to save the file to their local computer. Is this possible and how?

Thank you, Mark

Answer 1

Ok to answer your question in short. The audio is streamed. it definitely isn't saved onto the client's computer. However let's in an ideal situation, where the sound is not only streamed to the client's computer but the client cannot save the sound directly by right click and save from anywhere on the site; the user can record the sound with a microphone. ok that was a joke. But the user can record the streamed sound very easily from his computer.

The re are many applications available on the internet for free that allow users to record streamed sounds. I've done this before many a times. (live radio on the internet). It picks up the audio data and then saves it into a file which can then be played for later use. Its very good quality as well. There will always be a way to do something. Try not to spend too much time on this.

EDIT: realised that you have an embedded media player on your web. and want to stream data now.

Ok here is a solution to your problem. A lot of companies do this.

If you want to stream media (as opposed to having them download it) you'll need to install Windows Media Services. Windows Media Player can easily be embedded into web pages.

To do the true streaming, and real control of the streaming, you'll need a streaming media server. It'll only install on a server OS such as Win 2003 servers but not XP Pro.

You should only need to pass the audio clip url to the control that is handling the playback. If it's a client-side control, you can always tweak the parameters through some server-side code when passing it back the client, create the object code dynamically server-side in other words.

If the file is on another site, you shouldn't need a streaming media server due to the fact the server doesn't have control over it. Also, a typical window media file will be in a streaming format and can do some things you can do with a streaming file such as start/stop/pause, but it cannot do fast-forwards since it's lacking that level of control on the stream.

Heres a link that may help you. its a licensed tool: http://www.mediasoftpro.com/

I hope this helps.

PK

Answer 2

Media files served by IIS can be served using progressive download if the bit rate is throttled, which is not true streaming but good enough for most purposes. However the media file is stored on the client's machine just like any other temporary internet file, so without any DRM in place that might not be an option for you.