What is streaming?
Streaming is a term that refers to a method of sending a large file, usually a video or audio file, across the Internet in a just-in-time fashion.
A History of Streaming
When video was first being transmitted over the Internet, you would click on a file to watch, and it would download to your machine. Slowly. Painfully. Coffee-break-worthy. The entire video had to download before you could watch it.
Then came progressive download. With this method, a click would begin the download, but after some portion had been downloaded, the movie would start to play, even though the download had not yet finished. The player (e.g., Windows Media Player) calculates the speed of the download, and guesses when to start playing the portion it has. The plan is to start late enough that the whole movie will be downloaded by the time you finish watching it.
Finally came streaming. In streaming, the file is not downloaded at all. Instead, just a few bits of the movie's information is sent at a given time. These packets of information are received by the media player, and displayed, then discarded, replaced by the next packets, and so on. Nothing is kept on your computer.
Benefits of Streaming
There are several benefits to streaming media, rather than downloading it.
Security - Since the packets are not retained by the computer that watches the stream, it is much more difficult for the viewer to snag a copy of the movie. While not foolproof, streaming is effective in keeping your content yours.
Long files are usable - With hour-long lectures or longer programs, downloading can be prohibitive. Commencement lasts an hour-and-a-half, and that ends up being 300 MB of movie. But with streaming, only the information requested is sent. You can choose ot start in the middle, and begin watching at that point without waiting for the previous 45 minutes to download.
Downside of Streaming
There is, really, only one downside to streaming. File quality can be poorer than a downloaded movie. This is why, when you watch large, high-quality movie trailers on the Internet, they will always be progressive downloads.
But streaming quality is not bad, in fact, it can be quite good, under the right circumstances. See our tips for better streaming.
Plugged In highlights go here, news, initiatives, spotlight, designed to draw the user who is done finding or browsing, further into our content.