Web streaming delivers multimedia content over the internet. It requires a media source, server software, and a client/player. Media is stored in a buffer and can be on demand or live. Web streaming is used for entertainment, research, science, business, and education.
Web streaming is the process of delivering multimedia content, usually audio or video, over the World Wide Web. Web streaming requires three things: a media source in a format that can be streamed; server software capable of streaming it; and a client, or player, that can play it on a user’s computer or other device, such as a smartphone or Internet radio receiver. The client is often a plug-in that runs in a web browser, but it can also be a dedicated media player. Players include features like rewind, pause and fast forward.
Streaming media does not need to be downloaded and stored on a local computer. In fact, most of the time it cannot be saved on a computer. When media is streamed, it is stored in a temporary storage space called a buffer so that it can be viewed or listened to before the entire file is uploaded. Typically, a few seconds of media are buffered before the file starts playing. Interference or a slow internet connection can cause playback to stop if new data cannot be loaded into the buffer quickly enough.
Web streaming can be on demand or live. With live streaming, the user hears or sees the media as it is being recorded. For example, when a lecture is broadcast live, the audio and video are captured as data. The data is compressed and sent from a web server to the viewer client, which decompresses it and presents it on screen and through speakers. The viewer can watch the conference in near real time, even if it takes place on the other side of the world.
With on-demand web streaming, media content doesn’t start playing until a web user requests it. Services such as YouTube and Vimeo provide on-demand web streaming: a user chooses a video to watch and plays it in the user’s media player. As with live streaming, the video is not saved to the user’s hard drive, but remains on the web server. It can be played over and over again, however, or revisited and played again later.
Web streaming is most common with audio or video files, but stock quotes and other textual data can also be transmitted. Streaming Internet television and radio uses web streaming to deliver video and audio for entertainment, and also has many uses in research, science, business, and education. Some of these uses include web conferencing, telehealth, and distance learning.
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