Customer Reviews

Inside Windows Media

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Goodbye Real. Hello Windows Media. Finally I found the answers to all my technical questions in this extremely well put together book about Microsoft's Windows Media Technologies. As well as all the technical stuff (i.e. what it can and can't do) there's lots of useful realworld applications and fictional case studies. All in all, it's pretty damn inspiring and gives me the confidence to use Windows Media technologies for all our streaming media requirements.

I picked this book up at Streaming Media West at the Microsoft stand. Well done and thanks chaps!

About time! I have been dying to pick up a good up-to-date book on streaming media particularly Windows Media and this is it. A good consise overview of all aspects of streaming media (creating and presenting content and how to serve + some insight on capacity planning.) Although the focus is on Windows Media, there's a lot of good tips to pick up that can be easily applied to the other realms (Real & Quicktime).

This text was published in 1999 and is accompanied by a CD of code and utilities. I wouldn't advise installing the CD in an XP environment, but seems fine under 2000, etc. Download the latest Windows Media SDK from Microsoft if using XP.

While the book has lots of interesting overview material, very little is tackled in depth. In fact, much of the book seems like padding around a few technical chunks. The programming content of the book is in chapter 9 and deals exclusively with automating various aspects of Windows Media (e.g. Windows Media Encoder). In this repsect, the title is misleading.

Personally, I was very disappointed to see so little on .avi. The specification of an avi file was only briefly described (you have to go to the web to get avi information of any quality). There is simply no good reason for failing to detail avi. Why Micorsoft doesn't devote a chunk of web pages to .avi is simply beyond me. The authors of this text mention avi only to dismiss it and argue for asf as the better standard.

The comparison between avi and asf is nicely arranged but surprisingly no avi or asf parser is discussed, despite RIFF parsers having been around for years. A whole lyer of background information was simply not there on the origins of these standards.

The two pages on codecs (229-230) are grossly inadequate and give a flimsy overview of developments. For instance, the Intel Indeo codecs are not mentioned at all despite their success with avi compression.

My overall impression is that the book is largely dated by the advent of XP media technologies and egregiously short on meaty technical detail. Unfortunately Microsoft haven't yet produced a suitable programmer's guide to windows media programming. So if you are really stuck and can't spent a few hours conducting intelligent web searches for resources, this book will meet some of your requirements. In the final analysis, however, this book is poor value for its price.

Good overview if you're using Microsoft encoder. Lacks depth in specifications, technical issues, etc.

This book was helpful, but it was overpriced. The information in there while useful and easy to understand, was at times too general and didnt give you specific enough examples of what to do. A large portion of the information in the book i was able to get off various web pages.

If you dont mind spending this money and want something with some really intro information and not a lot of detail or useful examples, then you'll like this book,

The book is good with explanations and a lot of can/cannot do could be found in it. The theory is explained mostly well but some times it doesn't provide enough examples. Chapter 4 is well written and I could find all the knowledge I needed. If you need to put together Encoder and Streaming server read carefully chapters 3, 4 and 5. If you need to automate Encoders and Streaming servers Than Chapter 9 can help you, with automating streaming servers just if you know C, if you're a VB guy, simply don't waste your time and go to the SDK. Generally, if automation is what you're looking for and you already have the basic knowledge of Streaming over IP than that's not the book for you.

The book is alright for the encoding guys, and the "bitrate-conscious". But there are many of us that would like more on dynamic ASX files, dynamic ad placement, and things like that. I would like to see more on utilization of ASP, and some of the other Microsoft products, like AD server. When there is a book that puts ALL of that together, it will get my 5 stars.

There are also numerous typos, looks like it was rushed to press.

Good handbook and reference on the standards and basics.