Web Hosting

Web Hosting Streaming

Web Hosting Streaming is the terminology used to describe video or audio files which are compressed when sent over the Internet and displayed by a viewer such Windows Media Player as they arrive.

These files are more user-friendly and efficient than standard file formats, which require the entire file to download before a user can access or view the file. Or simplay put it is a technology that allows you to play audio and/or video while it is still downloading.

Streaming is accomplished by way of web browser plug-ins, which decompress and play the file in real time.Web hosting steaming can be offered in two ways: on the same server or use dedicated servers to handle streaming only. The former can adversely affect performance since the server will be serving both the website and streaming at the same time. The latter allows uninterrupted streaming since the server in not being overloaded with requests.

With the advent of podcasting and other multi-media casting services, web hosting streaming is becoming a necessary tool for any business online. Web hosting streaming is being used by all kinds of online business from technology companies, social bookmarking websites, online radios and news channels to Churches and religious organizations.

Web hosting streaming can be streamed On Demand or as a live broadcast. Web hosting streaming can be offered in a variety of formats the most common being WMA , MP3, MP4, MPEG, WMV & ASF. These formats can be played on audio or video players that support the specific format. These are players like Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, Winamp, and so on.

Web hosting streaming requires a high degree of compression to transfer audio or video (or both) at say 28.8 Kbps or 14.4 Kbps speeds and still retain quality music and non-jerky video. Faster connection speeds are needed to improve quality substantially, and the speed must be maintained over the entire path between the transmitting and receiving systems.

Slow connections like dialups will greatly hamper the listening and/or viewing experience because of timeouts during playback. Optimizing the content for web hosting streaming is very important to cater for the various audiences using different connections speeds.

The source content must be compressed for successful streaming or downloading by your audience. Encoding is the process by which this compression is done which is determined by various factors like; the streaming media formats, supported playback platforms, delivery method - live streaming or on demand streaming, overall data rate - compression vs. quality vs. bandwidth, required data rate distribution - audio vs. video, video quality - smooth motion vs. image quality vs. image size and finally audio quality - mono or stereo..

Article Published: Friday 29th December 2006