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How To Streaming Video

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Streaming video, or audio, is media that is being continuously received by, and displayed to, the end-user while it is being delivered by the provider. These, grouped together are known as streaming media. The name refers to the delivery method of the media rather than to the actual media itself. Television and radio are streaming media but here we are talking about streaming video on the internet.

With the internet came attempts to display video but little progress was made due to the lack of technology and bandwidth. Technology has overcome these problems with more powerful computers, standard protocols and formats. More homes and computers with faster CPUs can now access broadband and we now see the expansion of video on the internet.

Businesses and websites are steadily taking advantage of this booming sector. Some sites have had video on them since the technology was available, more sites are turning to video and its advantages daily while some sites may not understand the technology and prefer to remain with the written word. Having said that it is now so easy to incorporate video into websites that there is no real reason not to.

With true streaming video the end user can start watching the file almost as soon as it begins downloading. The file is sent to the user in a, more or less, constant stream, and the user watches it as it arrives. The obvious advantage with this method is that no waiting is involved. Streaming media has additional advantages such as being able to broadcast live events and sometimes referred to as a webcast or netcast. True streaming video must be delivered from a specialized streaming server. This type of streaming video is not used by most websites.

Progressive downloading, pretty much the same as HTTP streaming, enables the video to be viewed as soon as a portion of the file has been received. This simulates true streaming video but is not of the same quality but has the advantage of being able to be hosted on a normal server. This is the simplest and cheapest way to stream video from a website. Small to medium-sized websites are more likely to use this method than the more expensive streaming servers. For this method you don't need any special type of website or host, just a host server which recognises common video file types.

Progressive download video is downloaded from start to finish, typically delivering the entire video file to a temporary file area of the viewer's computer. After a few seconds of downloading, the video starts playing. For this reason, most viewers can't tell whether they're seeing progressive or streaming video. Most of the time, the download will go faster than the playback, so the media player will easily be able to keep up. If the internet connection is slow or suffers traffic congestion, then the player pauses until it once again has a few seconds of video ready to play.

To create a progressive or HTTP streaming video all you do is the following.

1. Create a video file in a common streaming media format

2. Upload the file to your web server

3. Make a simple hyperlink to the video file, or use special HTML tags to embed the video in a web page or blog post.

When the day comes that your videos are popular then you might have bandwidth issues with your hosting provider and you may need to upgrade or move to a different host and server. Hopefully that day will soon be here.

How To Streaming Video

Downloading

When you download a file the entire file is saved on your computer's hard drive, which you then open and view at your leisure. The one major advantages is having quicker access to different parts of the file once downloaded, but it has the big disadvantage of you having to wait for the whole file to completely download before any of it can be viewed. If the file is quite small this may not be too much of a problem for you, but for large files it can tax your patience.

The easiest way to provide downloadable video files is to use a simple hyperlink to the file on your site or server. A slightly more advanced method is to embed the file in a web page on your site using special HTML code.

Making video files available this way is known as HTTP streaming or HTTP delivery. HTTP means Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, and is the same protocol used to deliver web pages. For this reason it is easy to set up and use on almost any website, without requiring additional software or special hosting plans.

Streaming

Streaming video works a bit differently, you or your visitors, the end users can start watching the file almost as soon as it begins downloading. The file is sent to the user in a constant stream, ideally, and the user watches it as it arrives. The main advantage with this method is that no waiting is involved, depending on the download speed of your service. Streaming media has additional advantages such as being able to broadcast live events, sometimes referred to as a webcast or netcast.

True streaming video must be delivered from a specialized streaming server.

Progressive Downloading

There is also a hybrid method known as progressive download. In this method the video file is downloaded but begins playing as soon as a portion of the file has been received. This simulates true streaming, but doesn't have all the advantages.

HTTP Streaming Video

This is the simplest and cheapest way to stream video from a website. Small to medium sized websites are more likely to use this method than the more expensive streaming servers.

For this method you don't need any special type of website or host, just a host server which recognises common video file types (most standard hosting accounts do this). Bear in mind you can't stream live video, since the HTTP method only works with complete files stored on the server. This method is very popular and will be used on this site and video syndication sites such as YouTube.

Create a Streaming Video File

There are many streaming video formats and the main one are probably familiar to you already. The most popular are Macromedia Flash, RealMedia, Windows Media, Quicktime and MPEG.

Each format has its pro and cons and people have their own preference. Ideally you should have files in all formats but this is far from practical and it is best to choose one or two at the most. Flash is the format recommended on this site and the Flash Player is usually found on the majority of computers connected to the internet.

There are two ways to create stored streaming video files

Once you have created you video in, let's say, .avi format then you need to prepare it for uploading to your web site ready for streaming by one of the following methods.

1. Use a conversion utility program. This takes an existing digital video file (avi) and converts it into the streaming format of your choice, in this case Flash video.

2. Export streaming files from video editing software such as Adobe Premiere or Ulead Video Studio.

Conversion Utilities

A conversion utility is a stand alone program which imports a video clip and exports it in a different format. Examples include RealNetworks Real Producer External Link and Sorenson Squeeze External Link. There are simpler, cheaper and even free software programs for converting videos into Flash format which are perfectly adequate for the scope of this web site.

Basically, you simply open a file and select which which format to save it as. You can set various parameters to optimise the final video. The program will then chug away for some time while it makes the conversion.

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Bruce Walls has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home Management, Site Promotion and Affiliate Programs. Bruce Walls writes about using video on your website to increase traffic. You can read this article and more at . Bruce Walls's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.

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