What's the best way to stream mp4 video from Azure Media Services for IE8?

Question

I am trying to host an mp4 video on Azure Media Services and play it on IE 8, so the html5 video tag is not an option. I have to use a flash player which is fine. Should I...

a) Upload the mp4 file to the blob storage and put the path to it into the video player, like so:

<object width="800" height="560" id="SamplePlayer">
    <param value="/Content/MediaServices/Player/StrobeMediaPlayback.2.0.swf" name="movie">
    <param value="[email protected]("https://mymediaservicestorage.blob.core.windows.net/asset-abcd/myvideoHD.mp4?sv=2012-02-12&sr=c&si=abcd&sig=abcd&st=2014-10-10T18%3A10%3A02Z&se=2016-10-09T18%3A10%3A02Z")" name="flashvars">
    <param value="true" name="allowFullScreen">
    <param value="always" name="allowscriptaccess">
    <param value="direct" name="wmode">
    <embed width="800" height="560" flashvars="[email protected]("https://mymediaservicestorage.blob.core.windows.net/asset-abcd/myvideoHD.mp4?sv=2012-02-12&sr=c&si=abcd&sig=abcd&st=2014-10-10T18%3A10%3A02Z&se=2016-10-09T18%3A10%3A02Z")" wmode="direct" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="/Content/MediaServices/Player/StrobeMediaPlayback.2.0.swf">
</object>

Issues with a) The playback comes directly from blob storage, mymediaservicestorage.blob.core.windows.net. I do not think my reserved streaming units apply to blob storage.

OR

b) Encode the video using the "Playback on PC/Mac" option, and then my video player would be the same as in a) but the path would change to:

http://mymedia.streaming.mediaservices.windows.net/someguid/myvideoHD.ism/Manifest&AdaptiveStreamingPlugin_encryptionKeyToken=&autoPlay=true&plugin_AdaptiveStreamingPlugin=/Content/MediaServices/Player/MSAdaptiveStreamingPlugin-v1.0.10-osmf2.0.swf&AdaptiveStreamingPlugin_retryLive=true&AdaptiveStreamingPlugin_retryInterval=10

Issues with b) The file size went from a 15MB mp4 file to a 334MB ism/manifest file! So yeah maybe I am using my reserved streaming units but does that really do any good since the file is so large now?

Any help is truly appreciated!

Mike Goatly Mike Goatly · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-31T15:47:54

You should be able to do serve your MP4 file directly from media services - there's no need to encode anything from it. So your workflow would be something like this:

Create an asset in media services
Create an asset file within the asset, and upload the mp4 file into it
Create an origin locator for the asset
Serve the mp4 file directly from: http://youraccount.origin.mediaservices.net/originlocatorid/your-file.mp4

What's the best way to stream mp4 video from Azure Media Services for IE8?

1 Answers