Enable Advanced Fast Start

Note

By default, Advanced Fast Start is enabled in Windows Media Services. When Advanced Fast Start is turned off, the startup process is the same as for Windows Media Player 9 Series or later. The content does not play until the client buffer is filled according to the Network buffering setting in the Player.

Note

When a client connects to a publishing point with Advanced Fast Start enabled, Advanced Fast Start manages the startup process. For example, if a publishing point sources from a folder, all files in the folder will use Advanced Fast Start.

Note

Advanced Fast Start works with the HTTP and RTSP protocols, and can only be used with single-bit-rate streams.

Note

Advanced Fast Start is only used by clients that connect to a unicast stream. For the broadcast publishing points on your Windows Media server, you may choose to allow unicast rollover, which ensures that clients that cannot access the multicast stream can still receive the content by switching to an available unicast stream. You can configure Advanced Fast Start for unicast rollover connections on the Properties tab of your broadcast publishing points. Enabling this property does not enable Advanced Fast Start for multicast client connections.

Note

To use Advanced Fast Start, it must be enabled on both the Player and Windows Media Services because it depends on communication between the two components when the Player initially requests a stream. Advanced Fast Start is supported by Windows Media Player 10 or later or by Windows CE 5.0 or later (using the HTTP protocol).