What is streaming video?
Streaming video is a term applied to compression and buffering techniques that allow you to transmit and view video in real-time via the Internet. Instead of having to wait until it is downloaded completely, streaming video starts playing back shortly after beginning its download, as it is still being downloaded from server. What are the benefits of streaming media? Before the advent of streaming media technology, multimedia video and audio clips were downloaded as files (usually .AVI or .MPG) to your hard disk before you could view them. Then the file had to be opened using separate software applications like Apple’s Quicktime or Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. With streaming technology, you are able to view the media clip as it is downloaded, thus there is no waiting for an entire file to download. After a few seconds of buffering the media clip begins playing. In addition, there is no hard disk space required. Any disadvantages to using streaming media? Yes, in most cases, video p
Streaming video is a way to view movies directly on your computer, wherever you are, without having to wait for physical shipment or download. Streaming videos are not saved to your computer, but viewed as they arrive over your broadband connection. It’s a technology that provides instant gratification, sending images and sounds right to your computer within moments of your selection of a title. We have a large selection of titles available in this format – over 25,000 – and hundreds more are being added every week.
A streaming video is an web video that plays on the monitor at the same time that its data arrives at the computer via the Internet. Unlike downloadable Internet video, streaming video begins to play once the compressed data is received, and eliminates the concern of viruses which can accompany downloads. However, since the video plays as the data is received with streaming video, the video can be interrupted by a slow connection, and may pause and restart automatically in an attempt to “buffer” the data. Also unlike downloadable video, streaming video is not “kept” on one’s computer; access to streaming video is only available so long as the host website decides to keep the video posted to the site. A special player is required to play streaming video, such as those available for download from Microsoft and RealNetwork. Streaming video players use a program sometimes referred to as a “codec” to decompresses the video data and enable the video to play. The Internet’s most popular host
by Nick Smith, Publisher of CamStudio: Streaming Video Software Streaming Video came about mainly due to the limitations of dialup Internet connections being too slow to show video. Back in the days before cable or broadband access, if you wanted to watch a video, you had to download the entire video before you could watch it – and on a 56k modem that would take f-o-r-e-v-e-r! So the technical bods created a technology called “streaming.” Here’s Wikipedia’s definition: ” … multimedia that is continuously received by, and normally displayed to, the end-user while it is being delivered by the provider.” The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs). The verb ‘to stream’ is also derived from thi
Video Streaming is video and sound that is delivered to you as it is being received from a web site or digital TV station. This is very different from downloading a file to your hard drive and then playing it after the entire file has been downloaded. The advantage of streaming is that there is no waiting (or very little) from the time you click the mouse until you see the picture.
