Microsoft Media Server (MMS) is the name of Microsoft's proprietary network streaming protocol used to transfer unicast data in Windows Media Services (previously called NetShow Services). MMS can be transported via UDP or TCP. The MMS default port is UDP/TCP 1755.

Microsoft deprecated MMS in favor of RTSP (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 2008^[1].

Note however that Microsoft still recommends^[1] using "mms://" as a "protocol rollover^[2] URL". As part of protocol rollover a Windows Media Player 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^[3]. 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 over TCP connection will be attempted. This modified version is referred to by some third parties as MMSH^[4], and by Microsoft as MS-WMSP (Windows Media HTTP Streaming Protocol)^[5].

For several years, developers of the SDP Multimedia download tool reverse engineered the MMS protocol and published an unofficial documentation for it, until Microsoft finally released the protocol specification in February 2008.^[6]

Programs supporting MMS

• Windows Media Services
• Windows Media Player
• Winamp
• SDP Multimedia
• MPlayer
• Kaffeine
• VLC Media Player
• MiMMS
• Songbird
• mmsrip
• Xine
• Flashget
• Hidownload
• msdl (media stream downloader)
• SUPER

See also

• Windows Media Services
• Streaming Download Project
• Windows Media Station

References

1. ↑ ^{a b} Microsoft's Windows Media Networking Protocols Porting Kit
2. ↑ Microsoft's Windows Media Format 11 SDK Protocol Rollover
3. ↑ Protocol Rollover
4. ↑ MMSH - VideoLAN Wiki
5. ↑ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc251059.aspx Windows Media HTTP Streaming Protocol Specification
6. ↑ http://sdp.ppona.com/news2008.html

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, VLC 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.

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