ASP.NET MVC Audio Streaming

Question

I'm developing a web app that streams music tracks from a server to multiple clients. We are using MVC3 to build the application. I'm looking for an open source library or relatively simple custom solution that works well with MVC that we could use to stream the music to each client. All of the developers I'm working with are still fairly new to MVC, so we're kind of at a loss where to start with the streaming aspect of the app.

One more thing, synchronization is an issue because every client needs to be able to globally play/pause/stop the music for all other clients.

Any help pointing me in the right direction on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Did you look at the smooth streaming extension for IIS...

http://www.iis.net/download/smoothstreaming

Here is a comment from the forum that says audio only is also possible:

The recently released IIS Smooth Streaming Client 1.0 SDK has support for AudioOnly stream. There are two options Create a stream that is audio only (EE4 does not support this but other encoders might) Create a stream with a dummy video and set PlaybackMode on the client to AudioOnly. This would ensure there is no video download happening so extra bandwidth cost. (Note: the mode needs to be set early on - in xaml or before you set the source). source: http://forums.iis.net/t/1167802.aspx

check out also: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/792/adaptive-streaming-comparison

EDIT: I have no experience but it should work cross platform (with exceptions of course) =)...

See some additional discussions and links: http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/gg574359 http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/854/apple-http-live-streaming-with-iis-media-services http://forums.iis.net/t/1187099.aspx http://forums.iis.net/p/1183024/2003234.aspx

HTH

Answer 2

I would not use MVC for the streaming, but for everything around it. Use a dedicated streaming server (there are several open source alternatives available) and integrate it with your site.