What is streaming video and how is it different from the traditional video format found on the web?
There are many types of video format in the market. However, the most common ones found in the Internet arena includes AVI for Windows, MPEG for all platforms, and QuickTime MOV for Mac and Windows. These formats, all with their own compression schemes (called codec) are designed for optimal quality, and are NOT suited for streaming. Streaming, on the other hand, is the ability to start processing data, before all of it has arrived. A 30 min. audio recording can take up several MB, and no one wants to wait 20 or more min. to hear an audio clip. So streaming audio was invented. The same concept applies to video. Digital video files require anywhere from 90k to 1Mb per second, depending on compression. The higher the quality, the larger the file size. Currently, there are at least four formats that are specifically designed for streaming video over the Internet over low bandwidth (28.8k to 56k modems): VIVOActive, VDOLive, RealNetwork’s RealVideo, and the late but powerful comer Microsof
