1. Create Windows Media content and place it in the ASFROOT folder on the Windows Media Services server.
2. Open the Windows Media Administrator.
3. From the left side of the Administrator, select Unicast Publishing Points.
4. In the Broadcast Unicast Publishing Points section, clear the use wizard option. Click Broadcast, and then choose New.
5. For alias name, type a descriptive name.
6. For the path type, choose Remote Windows Media Station, and for the URL use msbd://localhost/alias (where alias is the same name you used in the previous step). This provides the connection point for Windows Media Player clients.
7. Next, on the left side of the administrator, choose Multicast Stations.
8. Click Stations, and then choose New.
9. Create a new station.
10. Give the station the same name as in step 5, and select distribution only.
11. Provide a descriptive program name. For the stream name, use the file name of the first file that you want to be in the playlist. Make sure that both the Start program once wizard is finished and Replay stream objects once finished (loop) options are selected.
12. Select Advanced Streaming Format (.asf) file.
13. Specify the unicast path to the file that you placed in the ASFROOT folder. This is typically mms://localhost/filename.asf.
14. Once the wizard is finished, the program and stream should play.

1. Open the Windows Media Administrator.
2. From the left side of the administrator, select Multicast Stations.
3. Select the program that contains the playlist that you want to modify and ensure that the program is stopped.
4. Click Streams, and then choose New.
5. For the name, it is best to use the file name of the file that you want to stream.
6. On the Source/Destination tab, specify a unicast URL for the file that you that want to add. This is typically like ms://localhost/filename.asf.

When you connect with a Windows Media Player client to the broadcast unicast publishing point, use the server name or IP address and the publishing point alias from step 5 in the first part of this section. For example: mms://wms1.microsoft.com/live.

via http://support.microsoft.com/kb/285292

This post talks about unicast and on-demand streaming of a video.

On-demand unicast is the way when you would like the clients to have control on the playback and require only one server connection per client. The user experience here is similar to playing a movie from a DVD player where you would be able to pause, rewind, fast-forward the media content unlike the broadcast multicast/unicast where the user has no choice to control the playback.

To deliver content to users by using a streaming method, you can save the content to a Windows Media server, and then assign the content to a publishing point. You can then provide users with access to the content by either creating an announcement file or by supplying users with the URL of the publishing point.

In the figure, there is an on-demand publishing point named TV1 on the Windows Media server called Server1. This publishing point identifies the location of the content you want to stream.

Windows Media Services requires no additional configuration and is ready for on-demand streaming. All you need to do is place the file that you want to stream in the default Windows Media Services content directory. The file can be either a Windows Media file or an .mp3 file. A Windows Media file is a file containing audio, video, or script data that is stored in Windows Media Format (file name extensions, such as .wma, .wme, .wms, .wmv, .wmx, .wmz, or .wvx)

• Copy the file to the %systemdrive%\Wmpub\WMRoot folder on your Windows Media server. Your server is now ready to stream the file.

After installing the Windows Media Services 2009, if you start the control panel and check the ‘Control Protocol’ option,  by default the only enabled option is RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol)  So basically your streams would respond to a mms://<url> link for you and open in Windows Media Player or something that plays back that media. Microsoft Media Server (MMS) is the name of Microsoft’s proprietary network streaming protocol used to transfer unicast data in Windows Media Services. To get your stream play in Silverlight, you have to enable the HTTP-based streaming. Silverlight basically looks at the mms:// <url> and translates that to get the stream over HTTP instead. The default port 80 might already be taken by IIS.  Right click on the HTTP control protocol and choose properties, then choose the IP addresses and/or the port you want it to operate on.  Save those settings and then enable the protocol.

To become more familiar with Windows Media Services capabilities, take the tour here. Start >> Run and then type %systemroot%\system32\windows media\server\admin\mmc\hta\tour_.hta

To start the Windows Media Services management interface and configure your streaming media server, Start >> Run and then type %systemroot%\system32\windows media\server\admin\mmc\wmsadmin.msc

More details about streaming can be obtained here:

• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/introhosting.aspx
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785105%28WS.10%29.aspx