Protecting my bandwidth

10-22-2009 9:02 AM |

If I have an audio or video file on my server I can load and play it fine in MediaElement: ( http://www.lazywater.com/#/MediaElementPlaylist ).

The problem is I have limited bandwidth that I purchase every month.

If someone is using my web site to listen (stream) I can control the amount of streaming by stopping their session after "so long", for example if they left work for the weekend and left it running.

But someone can come to my site and, using Fiddler, get the absolute address and then start streaming it outside of my control.  (I don't care if they get a copy of it and play it from their own machine - years on end - if they want.)  But I don't want them to eat up my bandwidth.  And, I don't want to keep checking my server to see if someone is streaming something.

Any ideas?

A side note:
Is there a way to put licensing info into the file so that only my app can play it.  (I suppose they could still (capture) down load it and edit out the license.  But at least they'd have to get their own copy.)

Re: Protecting my bandwidth

10-22-2009 1:59 PM |

Thanks,  this is the kind of response I'm hoping for.

I looked at that site but didn't see anything about how much bandwidth you get.  I'll spend a little more time there later.

Re: Protecting my bandwidth

10-22-2009 5:00 PM |

Those are some pretty good ideas - as far as a brainstorming session goes.

I'm not sure about the logistics since I'm running the mp3, wmv's in a play list. The user can click any of the items in the list and would expect it to start "immediately".  I think, with each visitor, I'd need to copy each media file somewhere on the server disk and pass the link to the client.  With multiple possible clients at anytime...

Does anyone know anything about MediaElement.CurrentState and it's MediaElementState.AcquiringLicense value?

If I can put - or associate - a license with each file then I could set a flag in the MediaElement.CurrentStateChanged event.  Is a "license" just some encrypted garbage that I can create and encode in each file?

The more ideas the better.

Thanks

Re: Protecting my bandwidth

10-23-2009 8:29 PM |

K2P2:

MediaElement.CurrentState and it's MediaElementState.AcquiringLicense value?

I think I'm going to find my answer about this in places like this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/drm/default.mspx

[[

Edit:  See also Silverlight

      help on:  Digital Rights Management 
      class:     LicenseAcquirer

 ]]

I guess I was too pressed for time to think "inside the box" and do some web searches.

Re: Protecting my bandwidth

10-26-2009 4:33 PM |

I guess I might have hit a dead end on this:

The offline help says: "it is important to note that you will need at least one PlayReady License Server to distribute licenses to the Silverlight client" (see edit reference above).  But these things cost money.

If I was to park my audio/video media on Azure, or anywhere else, there is no gaurantee that I know of, that somenoe isn't going to eat up my "streaming quota" - and thus require mandatory down time, or extra costs, for my web site.

For now I've decided not to stream any media.  (Little sound bytes here and there that I can easily move, encrypt maybe, ...)

What a bummer.

[[ Edit:  No need for such dispair.  I can put media in the ClientBin.  Won't be able to share it among my multiple websites without making a copy but it's better than nothing.  Also, I will have a huge ClientBin, so I'll need to stop using my USB stick :(  ]]

Re: Protecting my bandwidth

10-28-2009 11:14 AM |

Oops.  ClientBin doesn't work.  I can get at it from Windows Media Viewer.