Embedding the Player in a Web page

Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

By embedding a Windows Media Player ActiveX control in your Web page, you provide your users with a professional-looking and easy-to-use alternative to stand-alone players. The embedded Player is an integral part of the Web page, and it begins playing the content immediately after the page opens. An embedded Player can be used to play back both unicast and multicast streams.

In the Windows Media Services snap-in, you can use the Unicast Announcement Wizard and the Multicast Announcement Wizard to create basic, preconfigured, Web pages with embedded Player controls which you can then modify to suit your needs and your Web site. Alternatively, you can also select an option in the announcement wizards to copy the HTML commands for embedding a Windows Media Player ActiveX control to Notepad so that you can insert these commands as part of your Web site source code.

To embed the Player control in a Web page

1. In the console tree, select the publishing point that contains the content you want to stream in an embedded Windows Media Player ActiveX control.

2. In the details pane, click the Announce tab.

3. Click Run Unicast Announcement Wizard if your content is being streamed using unicast transmission. Click Run Multicast Announcement Wizard if your content is being streamed using multicast transmission.

4. For a unicast stream, follow the steps in the Unicast Announcement Wizard, making sure to select the following options:

   • On the Save Announcement Options page, select the Create a Web page (.htm) with embedded player and a link to the content check box and then specify a file name and location for the HTML file created by the wizard.

     -or-

     Select the Copy the syntax for embedding a player in a Web page to the clipboard check box to be able to program the commands directly into your Web page source code.

5. For a multicast stream, follow the steps in the Multicast Announcement Wizard, making sure to select the following options:

   • On the Specify Files to Create page, select the Automatically create a Web page check box.

   • On the Save Multicast Announcement Files page, in Web page (.htm) with embedded player, specify a file name and location for the HTML file created by the wizard.

6. Modify the Web pages created by the announcement wizard to suit your Web site. Provide a link to your site so that your clients can view it.