Windows Media is Microsoft's streaming media system, native to the Windows operating system and with limited authoring support for other platforms. As in most things, Microsoft wants its streaming media system to be your one and only, offering software free of charge and not worrying about the Windows Media platform turning a profit. Consequently, Microsoft hasn't made much effort to provide its tools (except for the Windows Media player, which is available for almost everything) for other operating systems to author and serve Windows Media content. NOTE
Serving Windows Media-encoded content via real-time (as opposed to HTTP/Progressive) streaming requires a Windows NT/2000 server platform. Windows Media servers will be covered later in this chapter, "Creating a Server." |