Back in October, we announced a new Microsoft video delivery technology called IIS Smooth Streaming.  In a nutshell, this approach combines both client (based on Silverlight) and server (based on IIS) components that, together, deliver scalable media experiences up to 720p+ over the internet using the plain old HTTP protocol.

We have had a preview of the technology running over at http://www.smoothhd.com courtesy of our CDN partner, Akamai.  We also added support for encoding to, and previewing, the new format in back in Expression Encoder 2 SP1.

Today we are announcing beta availability of the IIS Smooth Streaming component completing the picture and enable users to test the technology end to end..  You can download the extension over on the IIS Site.

There will also be a number of talks on all aspects of Smooth Streaming at MIX (including one I’m doing on encoding).. keep an eye on https://content.visitmix.com/2009/sessions/?categories=Media for more info. 

For more information and background on the technology check out the following links :

John Bocharov

I’ve seen the future and the future is… Smooth!

Smooth Streaming Questions- We’ve Got Answers!

Chris Knowlton

Smooth Streaming – What, Why, When, Where, and How

Alex Zambelli

Smooth Streaming Architecture

The Birth of Smooth Streaming

A Brief History of Multi-Bitrate Streaming

SmoothMBRCalc

Ben Waggoner

Behind the Scenes at SmoothHD.com- Encoding Big Buck Bunny

Expression Encoder 2 Service Pack 1 – Intro and Multibitrate Encoding

James Clarke (me :-) )

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 3: Smooth Streaming playback heuristics (coming soon)

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 2: Debugging IIS Smooth Streaming client code

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 1