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Movies, such as Quicktime
movies, are delivered to your computer by a process called streaming.
Before streaming technology became available, a whole movie had to be
downloaded to your computer before it could start playing. With streaming,
the movie starts playing as soon as sufficient information has arrived
at your computer.
There are several popular
streaming technologies: Quicktime,
Real
and Windows
Media.
Methods
of Streaming
There are two methods of
streaming - RTP/RTSP streaming and HTTP streaming.
RTSP (Real-Time Streaming
Protocol) streaming is a just-in-time streaming technology that
keeps your computer in constant touch with the server running the movie.
Digital data is transferred and displayed-and discarded once you've
seen it. Though a 3-10 second cache of data is stored to compensate
for occasional network "burps" that might otherwise compromise quality,
at no point is the entire movie stored on your computer. RTSP streaming
is ideal for full-length movies and live events.
HTTP streaming uses
the standard HyperText Transfer Protocol used by all web pages. http
streaming works by downloading an entire movie to your hard disk. QuickTime
has supported this for over a year. HTTP streaming is great for short
movies and anything else you intend to play over and over again.
Adding
interactivity to Quicktime movies
A new feature of streaming
movies is that they can be made interactive through the inclusion of
Macromedia Flash on a special track of the movie.
General
Background Information
A general "Streaming
Media" site
http://www.streamingmediaworld.com/gen/tutor/whatis/
The University of Western
Australia iLecture recording system
http://www.artsmmc.uwa.edu.au/mmc/lecture.html
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