STREAMING VIDEO
What is it?
How do I use it?
Streaming video is one of the greatest leaps in technology for distributing video on the Internet.
Simply put, streaming video means your viewer can see your video right away. They don’t have to wait impatiently for a huge file to slowly download from start to finish; they see it as it is downloading.
If it were not for the ability to stream video, I am not sure too many folks would be patient enough to wait for a video of any length to download completely before viewing.
Streaming video lets anyone with a decent Internet connection playback your video on their desktop. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, your video can be playing within a few seconds of you clicking GO! Unfortunately, if this isn’t the case for you and the internet availability in your area is lacking somewhat, then you may want to consider looking into satellite internet services
To provide a more smooth viewing experience, a few seconds of data is sent ahead and buffered before play begins. This is done to hopefully avoid the video stopping if it encounters one of the many common hiccups or network delays. Assuming the video file size is small enough to stream easily on common internet speeds, there should not be any buffering beyond the first few seconds.
That does not mean online video viewers report trouble free viewing, Quite the contrary.
You may have experienced such problems yourself. While watching your favorites on YouTube, have you ever noticed that some videos stutter, jerk, break into pixels and pause instead of playing smoothly? Either your internet speed is too slow, the stream got interrupted, or the video file is too big, and it clogs the tubes, so to speak.
Buffering and stutters happen when the download speed can not keep up with the real time speed of the video and play is halted while more of the video can download. Play usually resumes automatically after enough file has downloaded to hopefully stay ahead.
If the video continues to stop and buffer, either your internet connection is too slow or the video file is so darn big that it simply can not stream properly. That is an indication of poor compression and conversion before uploading to the web.
You can’t watch a five-minute video smoothly if the download time is a pokey ten minutes. That’s another great reason for Internet Video Producers to keep their file sizes small!
The general rule of thumb is for your compressed finished video to be no more than 10mb per minute. Otherwise, the video is likely to stream poorly.
Keep in mind that one of the biggest complaints from online video watchers is buffering time and stutters in their stream.
Check out tomorrow’s post for more details on the TWO KINDS OF STREAMING