Chapter 4: Playing Content with Windows Media Player

Overview

Windows Media Player is the client software that enables end users to play back audio and video on their desktop computers and handheld devices. Windows Media Player is capable of playing music and video from a variety of sources including CDs, DVDs, and files (for example, WMA, WMV, and MP3), as well as on-demand content that is downloaded from a Web site or streamed from a Windows Media server.

Windows Media Player also reads and performs commands contained in Windows Media metafiles, such as playlists and announcement files that have .wsx and .asx file name extensions.

For most digital media, users can control the playback of audio and video using the standard controls that are included with the Player. These controls include Fast Forward, Rewind, Seek, Play, Pause, Stop, Previous, Next, and Mute. Figure 4.1 shows the controls from the default Player skin.

Figure 4.1: Playback controls in Windows Media Player.

There are times when users can’t control the playback of a stream. These include:

• When the stream is live. The concept is similar to that of broadcast television. When you tune into your favorite show, you are able to turn the television on and off, change channels, or adjust the volume. If you tune in after the show has started, then you can watch it from that point forward, but cannot rewind it to play the part that you missed. The experience is the same with tuning into a live stream. You can use the Player to connect to and disconnect from the stream and adjust the volume, but that is the extent of your interaction with the broadcast.

• When the content is not indexed. Indexing is performed during the encoding stage. This is where key frames are referenced in an on-demand file. The player then uses these reference points for seeking within the file.

• When a legacy player is receiving content from a server-side playlist. The ability to fast-forward, skip, rewind, and pause while playing content from a server-side playlist is only supported by Windows Media Player 9 Series or a player that uses the Windows Media Player 9 Series ActiveX control.