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.
Video Self-hosting
Jul/090
Web video can be hosted on a regular web server by using progressive download. This is the do-it-yourself version of web video publishing and is called by some free video hosting. This basic type of video publishing is easy to learn for web designers and is often used by designers that do not have access to better technology or technical knowledge to use it.