Microsoft has just released its latest Cloud services, Azure Media Services. Azure Media Services provides a platform for managing video files, playing video on demand, and converting video into different formats to be played on all different devices. Within the next six months, Microsoft expects to provide live streaming as well. Microsoft’s vision is that this service will open the door for many to build new video sites that are tailored to specific consumer and business needs. By pulling together all of the different components that are needed to upload, convert and stream video into one platform, and support it within a scalable architectural framework, Media Services lowers the complexity and up front resources needed to provide video content. By being a Cloud service, where costs are only the storage and processing time needed, the startup cost to build applications around media is lowered substantially.
Though Azure Media Services is still in beta, it has been already been utilized in a very public setting. Azure Media Services is the platform that was used to provide the live streaming and videos on demand for the 2012 Summer Olympics in many different countries, including BBC’s coverage. (Unfortunately, this was not true in the U.S. where NBC offered more limited streaming via YouTube.)
Using the Media Services SDK, simple, single lines of .NET code can be written to upload a file into the Cloud Media Services and encode it to new formats for many different devices. A URL can be grabbed that will allow the file to be viewed on demand, from Cloud storage, in a client viewer or downloaded to a client device. Current encoding formats include Smooth Streaming, MP4 and conversion to HTTP Apple Live Streaming. The SDK includes some sample projects that get you started with a console application to upload files and view them on demand via an outputted URL.
Along with Media Services, a Client SDK had been released, to integrate with Media Services. Client media applications can be built using the Media Services Client SDK, which includes a Smooth Streaming Silverlight viewer for viewing videos on demands.
A fairly detailed how-to guide from Microsoft can be viewed here:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/media-services/