About the Player Control

The Microsoft® NetShow™ Player is an ActiveX™ control used for rendering Active Streaming format (ASF) streams. The Player control can be inserted into Web pages and OLE-enabled documents and applications. This SDK describes the rich set of functionality exposed by the control for developing applications and custom user interfaces on top of the control and integrating NetShow into other software products.

Because the Player control is an ActiveX control, developers can create applications in Microsoft Visual Basic®, Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition, Microsoft Visual C++®, Microsoft Visual J++®, or any other language that supports ActiveX controls. This SDK focuses on the techniques used to embed the Player control on a Web page and use VBScript commands to manipulate it.

Following is a list of some of the functionality exposed by the control for receiving and playing ASF files:

Starting, stopping, pausing, rewinding, and seeking ASF streams.
Adding menus and buttons to administer the Player control.
Retrieving information about the stream and the channel used to transmit the stream.
Monitoring the status of packets transmitted to the Player control.

The ASF streams delivered to the Player control can include but are not limited to the following media types:

Audio
Video
Still images
Internet Web page addresses (URLs)
Visual Basic Script (VBScript) commands

The Player control can play ASF streams from the following sources:

An ASF file on a local computer or network path.
An ASF multicast stream sent by a NetShow server.
An ASF unicast stream sent by a NetShow server.

NetShow also provides a stand-alone Player application based on the same technology used in the Player control. However, the Player control allows the developer to create a unique user interface, to take advantage of script automation, and to be part of larger Web applications.

For more information about creating ASF content, see the NetShow Tools Guide.