Progressive download – streaming?
Jul/090
Http streaming or as it is better known – progressive download, which has been developed as a marketing term by Macromedia as the “poor man’s streaming solution” for their Flash platform. Progressive download is available from Flash 7 onwards and in essence means a “play-as-you-download” method, that works with standard http web servers. The concept is not invented by Macromedia though, as it has existed for some time with the development of streamable file formats.
Progressive download streaming is achieved by downloading a file “progressively” i.e. from the start onwards up to the end and playing it. FlashVideo(FLV) is a streamable file format as the packets of video data are defined in a “row”(or queue) and can be interpreted one by one, without a need to read all the packets to the end first. As a result progressive streaming provides a similar experience to true media server streaming, but without the need of a media server.
True Streaming with a media server
Jul/090
Streaming means the ability to read parts of the content without loading it in whole. In the sense of web, video streaming means the ability to play video without having to download a file first.
Protocol based streaming or as it is called true streaming, uses a specifically designed network protocol to send packets with video data over a network connection. This approach requires a network server which implements this protocol and provides stream data to a client(player). This type of servers are called “Media Servers” since they generally serve media in the form of video and audio streams (and it was good marketing started by Macromedia).
Video Hosting
Jul/094
A web video hosting service allows content owners to upload their video to a specialized network and then use this content into their own website. Another term for video hosting is streaming hosting(or stream hosting) and it is also referred to as business video hosting as opposed to free video hosting.