What's The Deal With Streaming

When consuming media online, it is more than likely that you have come across multiple forms of viewing it; maybe, without even knowing it. Typically there are three ways for your device to play the, either, video or audio file. By streaming, downloading, or pseudo streaming the content. But what is the difference?

While the outcome of content may be similar or the same, the differences lie in how your computer access and presents the files. Downloaded media is the simplest to think about. In order to view downloaded media, the file must be downloaded in its entirety onto the computer or device it is being viewed on. These media files utilize the HTTP protocol so it does not require a server and could easily be played on standard media players such as Windows Media Player, Apple QuickTime, or RealPlayer . The quality of video and/or audio has the potential to be much higher and once downloaded, the file can be accessed unlimited numbers of times until the file is removed. In the early to mid 90s, this was realistically the only way to get media on the internet. However, with slow internet speeds and tiny bandwidths, this was still few and far between.

In the late 90s, technology improved and streamable media content really began to take off. Streaming media is usually embedded into a site and will begin to play the media as soon as enough data transfers in. Because the data is not being downloaded to the device, RAM is only being used when the media is playing. One big upside to streaming over downloading is the storage space that is not being taken up from the file itself. Streaming also dominates when it comes to the speed in which the viewer can experience the media. Depending on the size of the file and the internet bandwidth, downloads can take several minutes or even hours to complete, but when streaming, the content is able to be viewed as it transfers in resulting in much faster consumption.

As technology improved further, streaming was revolutionized. Pseudo streaming and progressive downloading, are terms that are often used interchangeably. It is almost like a combination of traditional streaming and downloading. Take YouTube for example, as they use pseudo streaming for their content. While the video is streaming, it is actually temporarily downloading in the background. Once the video fully downloads, it can be replayed, skipped forward, or gone back without the need to buffer, just like in a regular download. However, once a new video is clicked on or the viewer leaves the page, the download is removed.

In YouTube for example using pseudo streaming, the red arrow is showing where the video you are viewing and the black arrow shows how much of the video has been downloaded.

Chris Woodford has a very good explanation on streaming media over on ExplainThatStuff.com. Check it out Here.

So which one should you use? It’s impossible to say that one is better than the other, out right. It really comes down to how you use it and where. Through my experience, and with confirmation from the web, if you are on a computer or T.V. connected to fast and reliable internet connection with a large enough bandwidth, you will likely not experience any lower quality and steaming might be the best option. On the other side, if you plan on viewing the media multiple times or are using mobile data (since it takes about the same amount of data to stream and download), it is probably better to download the file directly.

Imran Uddin and Ada Ivanova Have two more interesting and super helpful blogs on this topic. Make sure to check those out as well.