This is an FYI for some of you who may have lower-powered WHS 2011 systems and are interested in media streaming. I am currently testing a WHS 2011 build on an Intel Atom DM510 board that had previously worked well for WHS v1. When streaming, this system
stumbles with most H.264/MP4 and recorded TV content, and WHS suggests a media streaming quality setting of 'Low' for this processor.
However, I have discovered that WMV video encoded with the VC-1 WMV3 (Windows Media Video Pro 9) codec streams perfectly at full HD resolution to the Web player (due to progressive download?). This content even works well with the remote app for Windows
Phone 7; the primary limiting factor seems to be 3G bandwidth rather than server transcoding.
Interestingly, WMV content encoded using the Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile codec (WVC1) behaves identically to H.264/MP4, triggering a real-time transcode that fails on the Atom rig.
So until it's possible to upgrade the server HW, picking the right media format for video content (if you have the option) seems like a decent workaround.
Regards,
G
