Setting up Unicast Distribution

To enable unicast distribution, the Fabrikam technicians create a broadcast publishing point on a remote server that sources from the broadcast publishing point on the origin server. Then they configure the remote publishing point for multicast delivery. End users normally connect to the multicast stream from the origin publishing point. However, broadcast publishing points that are configured for multicast can also deliver unicast streams.

When you distribute from a broadcast publishing point, clients connect by using unicast streaming, which means that they can take advantage of packet resending and error detection for a higher-quality stream. You could also configure distribution in the opposite way, by sourcing from a multicast stream and distributing unicast streams through stream-splitting. The same basic steps apply in either case.

Unicast distribution is enabled in two steps. First, create a broadcast publishing point on the remote computer, then configure it for multicast delivery.

Creating a Broadcast Publishing Point for Distribution

On the remote server, the technicians add a new publishing point using the advanced method, entering the following information:

For Publishing point type , select Broadcast .
For Publishing point name , type the name of the remote publishing point. It can be the same as the publishing point name on the origin server, but you may want to avoid possible confusion by customizing the name to match the name of the server (for example, RemMCast01).
For Location of content , type the unicast URL of the publishing point (for example, rtsp://WMOrigin01/MCast01). Or, if you want to source from the multicast stream, type “mcast://”, followed by the location of the multicast information file for the publishing point (for example, mcast ://C:\Temp2\Mult01.nsc). The path must reference a file on the local drive or a network share.

The technicians make sure the origin server publishing point is set to allow new unicast connections so that the publishing point will continue to send a multicast stream while accepting unicast connections. The server can deliver unicast streams as soon as the publishing point has been created and the Allow new unicast connections option has been enabled.

To rebroadcast the stream using multicast delivery, the technicians would need to create a multicast information file and announcement file.

Configuring Multicast Delivery

To enable multicast delivery on the new publishing point, the Fabrikam technicians do the following:

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On the Announce tab of the new remote publishing point, run the Multicast Announcement Wizard .
Click Yes on the message asking whether to enable the WMS Multicast Data Writer plug-in.
In the wizard, enter the following information:
- Create a multicast information file (.nsc) and an announcement file (.asx).
- Add stream format by typing the URL of the origin server publishing point (for example rtsp://WMOrigin01/MCast01).
- Enter a path to save the two files. These metafiles are typically hosted on a Web server so they can be accessed easily by end users (for example, \\WebServer\Inetpub\Wwwroot\RemMCast01.asx and \\WebServer\Inetpub\Wwwroot\RemMCast01.nsc).
- Enter the URL of the .nsc file. For example, the URL on a Web server might be http://WebServer/RemMCast01.nsc.
Start the publishing point.

At this point a technician can open Windows Media Player and enter the URL of the .asx file (for example, http://WebServer/RemMCast01.asx). She will not see any client connections on either publishing point because multicast clients do not connect to a server, and distribution publishing points do not show up as clients on the origin server.

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