Microsoft Media Server is the name of Microsoft's proprietary

Proprietary protocol

In telecommunications, a proprietary protocol is a communications protocol owned by a single organization or individual.-Enforcement:Proprietors may enforce restrictions through patents and by keeping the protocol specification a trade secret...

 network streaming protocol used to transfer unicast

Unicast

right|200pxIn computer networking, unicast transmission is the sending of messages to a single network destination identified by a unique address.-Addressing methodologies:...

 data in Windows Media Services

Windows Media Services

Windows Media Services is a streaming media server from Microsoft that allows an administrator to generate streaming media . Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported...

 (previously called NetShow Services). MMS can be transported via UDP

User Datagram Protocol

The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

 or TCP

Transmission Control Protocol

The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...

. The MMS default port

TCP and UDP port

In computer networking, a port is an application-specific or process-specific software construct serving as a communications endpoint in a computer's host operating system. A port is associated with an IP address of the host, as well as the type of protocol used for communication...

 is UDP/TCP 1755.

Microsoft deprecated MMS in favor of RTSP

Real Time Streaming Protocol

The Real Time Streaming Protocol is a network control protocol designed for use in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming media servers. The protocol is used for establishing and controlling media sessions between end points...

 (TCP/UDP port 554) in 2003 with the release of the Windows Media Services 9 Series, but continued to support the MMS for some time in the interest of backwards compatibility. Support for the protocol was finally dropped in Windows Media Services

Windows Media Services

Windows Media Services is a streaming media server from Microsoft that allows an administrator to generate streaming media . Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported...

 2008.

Note however that Microsoft still recommends using "mms://" as a "protocol rollover URL

Uniform Resource Locator

In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....

". As part of protocol rollover a Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...

 version 9, 10, or 11 client opening an "mms://" URL will attempt to connect first with RTSP over UDP and if that fails it will attempt RTSP over TCP. After an RTSP attempt fails, Windows Media Player versions 9 & 10 will attempt MMS over UDP, then MMS over TCP. If using Windows Media Player 11 and an RTSP attempt fails, or if using a previous version of Windows Media Player and MMS fails, a modified version of a HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a networking protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web....

 over TCP connection will be attempted. This modified version is referred to by some third parties as MMSH, and by Microsoft as MS-WMSP (Windows Media HTTP Streaming Protocol). The URI scheme "mms://" has also been proposed to be used for the unrelated Multimedia Messaging Service

Multimedia Messaging Service

Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.The most popular use is to send photographs from...

 (MMS) protocol.http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-wugofski-mms-uri-scheme

For several years, developers of the SDP Multimedia download tool reverse engineered

Reverse engineering

Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...

 the MMS protocol and published an unofficial documentation for it, until Microsoft finally released the protocol specification in February 2008.

Programs supporting MMS

• Windows Media Services
  Windows Media Services
  Windows Media Services is a streaming media server from Microsoft that allows an administrator to generate streaming media . Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported...
  
  
• Media Player Classic
  Media Player Classic
  Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...
  
  
• Windows Media Player
  Windows Media Player
  Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
  
  
• Winamp
  Winamp
  Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...
  
  
• SDP Multimedia
• MPlayer
  MPlayer
  MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
  
  
• WiMPlay
• Amarok
• foobar2000
  Foobar2000
  foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows developed by Peter Pawlowski, a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft. It is known for its highly modular design and extensive SDK which allows third-party developers to do such things as completely replace the interface...
  
  
• Kaffeine
  Kaffeine
  Kaffeine is a media player for Unix-like operating systems running KDE.By default it uses xine-lib media framework but also supports GStreamer. It also supports the use of MPlayer project's binary codecs for proprietary formats...
  
  
• VLC media player
  VLC media player
  VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
  
  
• MiMMS
• Songbird
  Songbird (software)
  Songbird is a free and open source software audio player and web browser, with a stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web."...
  
  
• mmsrip
• Xine
  Xine
  xine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization...
  
  
• Flashget
  FlashGet
  FlashGet is a freeware download manager for Microsoft Windows...
  
  
• Hidownload
• msdl (media stream downloader)
• SUPER
  SUPER (software)
  SUPER is a closed-source freeware front-end for open-source software video players and encoders provided by the FFmpeg, MEncoder, MPlayer, x264, ffmpeg2theora, musepack, Monkey's Audio, True Audio, WavPack, libavcodec, and the Theora/Vorbis RealProducer plugIn projects...
  
  
• Spider Player
• Totem
  Totem (media player)
  Totem is a media player for the GNOME computer desktop environment which runs on GNU/Linux, Solaris, BSD and other Unix and Unix-like systems. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10 , but de facto it was already included in most GNOME environments...
  
  
• Flip4Mac
  Flip4Mac
  Flip4Mac is a trademarked brand name for Telestream, Inc.'s proprietary digital media tools for the Macintosh. It is particularly known for being the only QuickTime component for Mac OS X that supports Windows Media Video, although there is non-QuickTime OS X software that supports WMV...
  
  
• XMMS2
  XMMS2
  XMMS2 is a new generation of the XMMS audio player. It is a new design, written from scratch, separate from the XMMS codebase...
  
  
• wgetpro
• FStream (Mac/iPhone app)
• Rhythmbox
  Rhythmbox
  Rhythmbox is an audio player that plays and helps organize digital music. Originally inspired by Apple's iTunes, it is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop using the GStreamer media framework. However, Rhythmbox functions on desktop environments other than GNOME.-Music...
  
  
• Unreal Media Server
• Screamer Radio
  Screamer Radio
  Screamer Radio is a freeware-licensed internet radio client with recording abilities. It is able to play back streams using WMA, MP3, Ogg Vorbis or AAC streams and can also record these into several formats...
  
  
• Real Player

See also

• Windows Media Services
  Windows Media Services
  Windows Media Services is a streaming media server from Microsoft that allows an administrator to generate streaming media . Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported...
  
  
• Streaming Download Project
• Windows Media Station
  Windows Media Station
  Windows Media Station file is the session description file for Microsoft's Media Stream Broadcast protocol.Introduced with Microsoft NetShow 2.0, the file extension .NSC stands for NetShow Channel, the former name of the service...
  
  

External links

• Microsoft Media Server Protocol Documentation download
• Microsoft Media Server Protocol Documentation on MSDN
• Microsoft Media Services 9 Firewall Information
• Software that plays MMS content or allows capture to a harddisk such as MPlayer
  MPlayer
  MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
  
  , VLC
  VLC media player
  VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
  
   and MiMMS
• Streaming Download Project (SDP) – a free, but closed-source, implementation of the MMS protocol; reverse-engineered protocol documentation also freely available. It lets you download the videos available only for streaming forcing the use of TCP protocol (this can not be done with Windows Media Player).
• libmms A free, open source implementation of the MMS protocol.
• WMS authorization plugin - Open source media contents authorization plugin.
• Wmsauth - http://wmsauth.sourceforge.net project's support site. Instructions, examples and download available
• Windows Media Services technical blog