Streaming Video
Are you a fan of Google video? Is it YouTube your daily bread? Then you are a fan of streaming video.
Streaming video technology allows you to watch and video clip in real-time - within a few seconds after hitting the play button. If you are saying, "Yeah? So what?" you are real member of the YouTube generation.
That's because the alternative to streaming video is downloading. The problem with downloading video is that you have to wait for the whole file to transfer to your local computer before you can watch it. Streaming video allows you to watch the video as it's downloading.
Think of streaming video as broadcasting - except instead of being shown at a particular time, it can be viewed on demand.
Streaming can be done in real-time, just like TV broadcasting. Webcasting, as this type of video streaming is called, is usually reserved for special events. The most common type of streaming video is Video On Demand (VOD), which means it can be viewed anytime 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
How does streaming video work?
Streaming video files are a bit different than regular video files. Videos intended for streaming must be specially formatted and may have to be stored on specialized computer called a streaming server. This is especially important for popular videos that are viewed by thousands of people.
Services like Google Video and YouTube take care of both the formatting and the storage. Just upload a video file and it will be converted to the proper format automatically. Both Google and YouTube host video files which can be embedded in any regular web page.
Even though Google Video and YouTube make streaming video easy, a quick browse through either of these services shows a huge range in video quality.
To look its best, streaming video requires attention to some technical details. The Video Streaming Help web site offers you tips and advice for producing great looking streaming video!
Add A Comment
David,
If your account has a download limit, then sure, you're going to use a lot of it by downloading that much data.
If you've got no limit then the videos should continuously download. But the hosting server that you're downloading from may have a monthly limit, and once that's reached nobody can download anything until the first of the next month.
if i have 10 to 15 hour long videos qued up to watch on my browser and leave it on for 2 days does it continuosly download all of the movies or does it reach a point where it is not downloading? our download limit is getting eaten up at a stupid rate at the moment and we were wondering if this could be a cause, we have scanned our pc's and found no virus's and this is the only thing that has changed in what we do as day to day internet use is concearned.