Video streaming makes it possible to put up videos on the internet for other people to see. With this technology, whole television programs can be placed on the internet for viewers to see. Do you have a special video you wish to share with your friends? Streaming can do it for you.

Live or on-demand Streaming

Streaming can be live or on-demand. With live streaming, the video is put on the internet as and when the event being covered takes place. This is especially employed by television stations to offer live football matches and other events to their viewers. It involves recording and broadcasting the event at the same time. A camera is used in the recording and a digitizer is used to convert the recording into digital format and then delivered onto the internet. The main issue with live streaming has to do with security.

Live streaming also requires a lot of bandwidth both for putting the content on the internet and for accessing it by the viewers. On-demand streaming is when the encoded video is stored on a server. With this, users are allowed to access the media as and when they want to, usually sometime after the recording was done. Security issues here are better and bandwidth requirements are also minimal.

Progressive Download

Progressive Download is one of the methods for sharing encoded video on the internet. The video is placed on the server and a media player is configured to point to the URL of the video. The advantage with this is that, no additional software installations are required. Progressive download also works with Content Distribution Network. This method is most useful if there is no need to set access rights for the video or for short videos.

RTMP method of streaming

The RTMP method of streaming is said to be user friendly and uses bandwidth more efficiently. This method can be used for both live and on-demand streaming. It requires little investment for server configuration. Users can jump to any part of the video they are interested in without having to stream other sections first and also, only the portion being viewed by the user is delivered. Servers can also be configured to restrict access to only certain people.

Partitioning Multiple Segments

Video streaming can also be done by Partitioning Multiple Segments. The video to be streamed is divided into segments which contains a specific time of the video. The segments have a fixed length of about 5 to 10 seconds. The media player plays the segments one after the other. The videos here do not require access control and the method is usually suitable for longer videos. There is no need for a specific player but any media player is capable of playing the segments. This requires less bandwidth as it takes very little for a segment to load and the next segment is loaded when the previous one is done and playing.

Video streaming has made it possible to watch television and videos over the internet. Live streaming is especially useful in bringing conferencing and live football matches to users.

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