Streaming

Streaming allows you to listen to music and watch videos in real time without downloading any file.

20:38 29 May 2017

Streaming, which is a fairly recent development in the Internet world, offers you continuous stream of data allowing you to listen to music and watch videos in real time. It does not require you to download and save a file on your computer. Some broadcasters prefer streaming because it is difficult for users to save and distribute the content illegally.

 

File encoded for streaming are often highly compressed to use as little bandwidth as possible. Streaming requires fast and steady broadband connection. If there is any sort of interruption, the screen will go blank or the audio will drop out. To minimise this problem, the PC stores a buffer of data that has already been received. If there’s an interruption, the buffer goes down for a while but the video is not interrupted.

 

Streaming is extremely popular due to various Internet services including Spotify, YouTube and the BBC’s iPlayer. Some services, such as YouTube, offer different levels of quality to match the user’s Internet connection speed. It can stream low, medium and high quality videos for broadband and mobile phone users.