MS Open Tech early contributor to open source dash.js community to accelerate advanced video streaming through MPEG-DASH standard

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MPEG-DASH is key to the future of online video as it is the latest ISO standard for Internet streaming. Over 75% of surveyed European broadcasters are planning to adopt the standard by the middle of 2014. To accelerate this new media technology, Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. (MS Open Tech) recently contributed code on a new open source project called dash.js that will deliver an MPEG-DASH video player for Internet Explorer 11, and other browsers.

In June, at the //BUILD/ conference, Netflix demonstrated MPEG-DASH playback in Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) without any browser plugins. IE11 was also shown playing MPEG-DASH content using dash.js JavaScript player. This marked a significant step forward in facilitating cross platform content streaming since it removes the need to develop proprietary plugins for each platform. Using the dash.js code developers can more easily build browser based MPEG-DASH players in order to directly address broadcasters concerns about a lack of MPEG-DASH players.

MS Open Tech contributions

Dash.js is an early stage community project, initiated by members of the DASH-IF, to build a cross-platform video player that is compliant with the DASH-AVC/264 Implementation Guidelines. In the latest release of dash.js, our work focused on features that stabilize the player and its ability to stream content in browsers that support Media Source Extensions (MSE), a W3C specification that allows JavaScript to generate media streams for playback.

As a part of this work, the essential on demand video streaming operations such as seek, play and pause have been refactored to address potential incompatibilities between different browser implementations. We have also put considerable effort into improving the development process through the provision of a better test infrastructure. This makes it easier for third parties to participate in the project in order to further enhance the player.

Building the developer ecosystem

MS Open Tech contributions, when combined with the work of other community members, has enabled plugin free video streaming in IE11 and other browsers supporting MSE and we look forward to continuing to play our part in delivering on the promise of MPEG-DASH. To be one of the first to experience the future of Internet video install the Windows 8.1 preview and take a look at dash.js project. Your feedback is important to us and as part of the dash.js project community we welcome all forms of input.

Kirk Shoop, Senior Software Development Engineer
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Ross Gardler, Senior Technical Evangelist
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.