About Streaming Media

WHAT IS STREAMING MEDIA?
Streaming media is the convergence of broadcast and rich media, empowering both content providers and audiences with a whole new world of choices.

The primary characteristics of “streaming media”

Streaming is an emergent technology. There are many diverse, and often confusing, definitions floating around. This article deals with streaming media only — i.e., audio, full-motion video, and multimedia content — as opposed to other applications of streaming technology, such as the streaming of real-time stock quotes. For our purposes, there are three primary characteristics that combine to form streaming media:

1. Streaming media technology enables real-time or on-demand access to audio, video, and multimedia content via the Internet or an intranet. This technology enables the near real-time transmission of events recorded in video and/or audio, as they happen — sometimes called “Live-Live,” and commonly known as Webcasting. Streaming technology also makes it possible to conveniently distribute pre-recorded/pre-edited media-on-demand. In other words, media that is stored and published on the Web in streaming formats can be made available for access at any time.

2. Streaming media is transmitted by a media server application and is processed and played back by a client player application, as it is received. A client application, known as player, can start playing back streaming media as soon as enough data has been received — without having to wait for the entire file to have arrived. As data is transferred, it is temporarily stored in a buffer until enough data has accumulated to be properly assembled into the next sequence of the media stream.

When streaming technology was first available, the ability to begin playback before the entire file had been transferred was a distinct advantage. Now, however, pseudo-streaming techniques, such as progressive download, allow some other formats to begin to play before file download is completed. So, while the ability to begin playback prior to completing file transfer is a characteristic of streaming, it is not, in and of itself, a differentiating factor.

3. A streamed file is received, processed, and played simultaneously and immediately, leaving behind no residual copy of the content on the receiving device. An important advantage of streaming media (unlike either traditional or progressive download) technology is the copyright protection it provides. No copy of the content is left on the receiving device. Therefore, the recipient can neither alter nor redistribute the content in an unauthorized manner.
Streaming integrates the old with the new...

If you take away the references to the Internet and the computer from our definition of streaming media, it’s clear to see that we have been “streaming” media since the dawn of the media age. Streaming media is not new, it has been around since the inception of the radio by Marconi in 1897. We just called it broadcast. Broadcast, however, as we currently know it in the form of radio and television, does not yet provide the rich media experience that the Internet and the World Wide Web have made possible.

Like broadcast, streaming media delivers the real-time or on-demand access to audio, video, and multimedia content that audiences want, while providing the copyright protection content providers demand. But streaming media can also weave interactivity into the experience.

Unlike analog broadcasting, the digital nature of streaming media facilitates the integration of interactive capabilities such as the chapterization of segments, clickable hotspots within the video frame, URL flips that automatically launch Web pages at specific instants during playback, and the intelligent indexing of media content through the use of searchable keywords.

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