Re: Newbie - streaming video.

On Sun, 5 Mar 2006 02:38:16 -0500, "\"R&B\""
<NoneOfYourBusiness@xxxxxxx> wrote:

.avi is a poor choice for streaming video. Try something smaller, like a
compressed .wmv or .mov. Even Real Media (.rm), as much as I hate it, and
as much as it is being rendered obsolete (and thank God for that) is a
better choice than .avi. Nobody streams .avi files.


That's nonsense. AVI is a file container, and can host very many types
of compressed content. If you've watched a DivX movie then you've
experienced MPEG4 derivative inside an AVI container. There's no
"smallness" or "largeness" associated with AVI at all. It's what you
shove inside it that determines the bitrate needed to view it.


Most higher-end encoding software gives you the choice between presets that
will encode your file to either a "downloadable" media file (which has to be
fully downloaded before it'll start playing) or a "streaming" media file


Again this is just nonsense. All modern media players will begin
playing the file when they determine enough of it has been
[progressively] downloaded to allow near uninterrupted playback.
That's what buffering settings are for, and operate on.


(which will start playing once enough of it has downloaded to allow the
player to start playing it, then will continue downloading the rest while
the first part is playing).


Sorry wrong again. A Streaming media file allows random access, a
Progressive Download doesn't. Streaming from a proper media server
means you get a miniumum initial download, enough to fill the players
buffers.

Using a term "downloading" in relation to streaming media is also
misleading, since the entire file never exists on the receiving
computer, unlike progressive download where the file *may* be cached
by the browser.

In addition, the player and server will often be arranged to "fast
start", i.e the server will try to maximise the initial delivery to
the player - up to 3-5x that of the encoded media file bitrate if
possible.

Both WMP and Quicktime can do this, not too sure about Real Player.


HTH
Cheers - Neil
.

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