Live streaming media is the transmission over the Internet of video of an event as it happens. Streaming is a form of online video in which the site sends video footage to a user’s machine “on the fly” rather than as a complete file. It’s akin to the difference between watching a TV show as it airs and watching a DVD.
Live streaming media is different than on-demand streaming. With the latter, the content has previously been recorded. The user then accesses it at a time of their choice, though it is still streamed to their machine rather than downloaded as a complete file. YouTube is probably the best known on-demand streaming site.
The quality of live streaming media can be extremely variable. One factor affecting it is the technology
The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, video cassettes, audio CDs). The verb 'to stream' is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner. Internet television is a commonly streamed medium.
Live streaming, more specifically, means taking the media and broadcasting it live over the Internet. The process involves a camera for the media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher where the streams are made available to potential end-users and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. The media can then be viewed by end-users live.
Security remains one of the main challenges with this new methodology.Digital rights management (DRM) systems are an example of a solution to keep this content secure.
Contents
* 1 History * 2 Streaming bandwidth and storage * 3 Codec, bitstream, transport, control * 4 Protocol issues * 5 See also * 6 Notes * 6.1 Footnotes * 6.2 Citations
History
Attempts to display media on computers date back to the earliest days of computing in the mid-20th century. However, little progress was made for several decades, primarily