Event ID 347 — Broadcast Archiving

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

When you use a broadcast publishing point to stream content, you can configure Archiving plug-ins in Windows Media Services to archive the content to a file as it streams. Archiving is useful when you are streaming content that is not already recorded—for example, a stream from an encoder. The archive file enables you to make the content available for on-demand requests or rebroadcast. You can either wait until the broadcast is over to make the archived content available or you can use the Play While Archiving feature in Windows Media Services to allow clients to stream the archived content, even as the server continues to archive streaming content to the file. For more information, see Archiving content.

Event Details

Resolve

Restart archiving after interruption (if necessary)

Usually, no action is required if a short network interruption occurs. However, if a lengthy network interruption occurs (for example, loss of power), the WMS Archive Data Writer plug-in may be disabled and you must restart archiving.

To restart archiving after network interruption:

1. On the Windows Media server, open Windows Media Services. To open Windows Media Services, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Windows Media Services.
2. In the console tree, click the broadcast publishing point for which you want to archive data.
3. In the details pane, click the Properties tab.
4. In Category, click Archiving.
5. In Plug-in, right-click WMS Archive Data Writer, and then click Enable.
6. In the details pane, click the Source tab, and then click Start Archiving.

If the live stream is interrupted for even a brief time, the current archive file is closed. After the broadcast publishing point reconnects to the live stream, a new archive file is created and archiving resumes. If the broadcast publishing point is sourcing a live stream from an encoder, archiving to the new file starts from that point in the stream. If the broadcast publishing point is sourcing from a server-side playlist, archiving to the new file starts from the next available media element in the playlist.

Note: If short network interruptions occur frequently, the Windows Media server may be overloaded. You may have to add servers to your streaming media network to service your clients or improve the fault tolerance of the system. For information about how to add capacity to your system, see Capacity Planning. For information about how to improve the fault tolerance of your system, see Fault tolerance.

Verify

To verify that the output from your live broadcast is being archived correctly to a file in the archive directory, set up a Play While Archiving configuration in Windows Media Services to allow a test client to read from the archive file as the Windows Media server writes to it. For more information, see About Play While Archiving. After you have configured Play While Archiving in Windows Media Services, you can view the archive file in Windows Media Player to confirm the quality of the archived broadcast.

To view the archive file in Windows Media Player:

1. If you want to view the file by using Windows Media Player on the computer that is running Windows Media Services, you must install Desktop Experience. For more information, see Installing Desktop Experience.
2. On the Windows Media server, open Windows Media Services. To open Windows Media Services, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Windows Media Services.
3. In the console tree, click the publishing point that sources from the archive file.
4. In the details pane, click the Announce tab, and then, in Connect to a unicast stream, note the value of the URL that a client can use to access the content.
5. Start Windows Media Player on a computer that can access the stream, and enter the URL that you noted in the previous step. You should be able to view the archived broadcast from the beginning of the event; however, you will not be able to fast forward or rewind the content until archiving stops.

Related Management Information

Broadcast Archiving

Streaming Media Services