Streaming Video and Audio In the Internet
Entertainment is a necessity! And thank god we belong to the
digitalage when almost all our needs are readily available right
in the comforts of our own home.
And now that the Internet is here, the focus is not merely on
the issue of merely supplying information to the users but
giving them the choice to pick only the kind of information they
are most interested in, when to obtain these information, where
to extract these information from and of how these preferred
information should take form.
Imagine using your computer in watching your favorite NBA match,
your watch your favorite television show or the evening newscast
and listen to the live concerts and Webcasts through Castdial.
Imagine just sitting in front of your computer screen while
searching for articles on the hottest political issues rather
than going through those pile of newspapers or magazine archives
in your local library.
Streaming media is a technique that allows users to view audio
and video contents while they are still receiving it. Or as
others perceive it, an audio and video file that plays as
instantly on a text based content as when a Web page downloads
on your browser. And unlike downloading a video or audio file to
be played later, it flows to your computer screen enabling you
to view its contents simultaneous to the process of downloading.
So, how do you stream something into the Internet? Especially
video?
Here are the basic steps:
First, in order to stream a data in video form, a person must
use a 30-frames-per-second analog video that is fed by a VCH or
video camera to a video board within the computer. This must
then be converted from an analog wave form into binary data.
This representation is stored in the computer hard disk and
further reduced in size by video compression software. The video
compression software then scans each of the frames of the video
file and distinguishes which are redundant. The redundant ones
are erased. Only needed data are retained.
A user can then watch a file by clicking on an HTML tag embedded
in a website. When he does this the video streaming software on
the remote server is released and a steady stream of data begins
to flow. But before he gets to watch this, he must have an
interface or a "player" installed in his computer. If he has
this, he can then watch the file he requested through the
website's remote server.
Then comes the issue of speed of data retrievals in connection
to bandwidth.
The snail's pace of the 28.8, 33.6 and 56 kbps modems simply
cannot deliver the amount of kilobytes that streaming media
demands. This situation provided the Vendors who are well aware
of the problems to intelligently devise ways to manage network
resources for users faced with streaming media flood. From the
snail- blazing 28.8 dial-up connections, there came much
advancement. The 33.6 and 56K variants came out as minor
upgrades to their 28.8 sibling. This development could be hardly
felt by the users so they had to come out of that medium of
connection