Scheduling for 24/7 streaming video

[Daniel H]

Hi there - long time reader, first time poster, hoping for some help

We have a Windows 2003 Server with Media Services installed.

What we want to do is run a online streaming tv channel 24/7. Most of the content would be pre-recorded with a few hours live each week. And we are looking for some kind of scheduling software. I know Media Services has some sort of playlist creator but isn't really advanced I don't think.

We really want to be able to schedule by time and category if possible. So that we could have different categories of programmes stored on the server (maybe in different folders to distinguish them) and then be able to say:

midnight: category/folder 1
1am: category/folder 2
2am: category/folder 3

etc etc, any it randomly takes a file from the folder and plays it. And then be able to slot in when necessary a live feed to be taken from an encoded stream.

Were open to any ideas at this stage and would value anything

Daniel

[Allen McDonald]

I too am working on several of the same type of projects without much success. One thing I have found is using flash video with xml coding to launch each video. There is software out there doing this and i have actually created playlists. The bad thing is some the art of encoding "good" flash video. I have several partners using abacast for 24 hour streaming with much success, but currently no playtlists. If you have any luck, please let me know.

Allen

[Daniel H]

I've still had no luck

Does anyone know anything about creating play lists for use within Windows Media Services?

I know it has a play list creator within it, but it really doesn’t seem very advance and I never got my head around it totally, although it does have a start time so I wonder if anyone who has used it or knows more, knows whether it allows you to say for example:

00:00:00 - play VIDEO 1
00:50:00 - play TODAYS DEAL
01:00:00 - play VIDEO 2
01:50:00 - play TODAYS DEAL
02:00:00 - play VIDEO 3
02:50:00 - play TODAYS DEAL

etc etc.

There really must be some way of scheduling live video. I've tried flash videos in the past but find if you want the quality high enough, it produces huge files that would be unsuitable for this project.

I'd really value and advice.