What is streaming?
Streaming is the controlled delivery of a very large file from a server to a client. It’s just like downloading a piece of software or getting a file from FTP, except that the file being downloaded contains audio or video, and the streaming server and the streaming client use special software to negotiate the quality and rate of the download. If the underlying network has problems during the download, the client and server software adjust the video on the fly to maintain as high a quality experience as possible. If they can’t negotiate, the result is seen as “buffering” or stuttering and halts in the video. This is far more perceptible in a video that you are watching in real time while you download it, than it is in a file that can download in the background while you continue to surf. This is why it is so important to use a real streaming server instead of just letting people download video from your web server.
Streaming is a technology in which audio and video data continuously flows, or gstreams,h to the userfs PC from a server. It needs a transmission band wide enough to accommodate the number of recipients. It was not possible during the time analog modems were the mainstream and came into use with the advent of broadband (CATV, ADSL, and FTTH) in 2000.
A stream is a way of thinking about digital information for which there may be no ending point. The most conventional form of digital information is the file. Files always have a beginning and an end, but streams may or may not, and therefore software which uses streams must not require finding the end of the file in order to process it. Streams are usually delivered in packets which are self-contained, and usually allow seeking (i.e. fast forward) for further points in the streams. They are particularly important when dealing with large sizes of digital information, so most video and audio on the Internet is streamed.
Streaming is playing sound in “real time” as it is downloaded over the internet as opposed to storing it in your computer first. A plug-in to a web browser such as Netscape Navigator, Windows Media or RealMedia decompresses and plays the data as it is transferred to your computer over the WorldWide Web. Streaming audio avoids the delay entailed in downloading an entire file and then playing it with a helper application. If you have a dial-up connection or a slow computer SOME of our files will not stream. The files that are most likely to work for you are the ones recorded at a low bandwidth. Many of our files offer a choice.
