Streaming Media

Streaming media is multimedia for playback using an offline or online media player. Technically, the stream is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner by a client, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. Streaming refers to the delivery method of content rather than the content itself.

Distinguishing delivery methods from the media applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the traditional media delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, videotapes, audio CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or poor buffering of the content, and users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content. With the use of buffering the content for just a few seconds in advance of playback, the quality can be greatly improved.

Streaming Media

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Livestreaming is the real-time delivery of content during production, much as live television broadcasts content via television channels. Livestreaming requires a form of source media (e.g., a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content.

Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. The term "streaming media" can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered "streaming text".

The term "streaming" was first used for tape drives manufactured by Data Electronics Inc. that were meant to slowly ramp up and run for the entire track; slower ramp times lowered drive costs. "Streaming" was applied in the early 1990s as a better description for video on demand and later live video on IP networks. It was first done by Starlight Networks for video streaming and Real Networks for audio streaming. Such video had previously been referred to by the misnomer "store and forward video."[1]

Beginning in 1881, Thtrophone enabled subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over telephone lines. This operated until 1932. The concept of media streaming eventually came to America.[2]

In the early 1920s, George Owen Squier was granted patents for a system for the transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines,[3] which was the technical basis for what later became Muzak, a technology for streaming continuous music to commercial customers without the use of radio.

The Telephone Music Service, a live jukebox service, began in 1929 and continued until 1997.[4][5] The clientele eventually included 120 bars and restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. A tavern customer would deposit money in the jukebox, use a telephone on top of the jukebox, and ask the operator to play a song. The operator would find the record in the studio library of more than 100,000 records, put it on a turntable, and the music would be piped over the telephone line to play in the tavern. The music media began as 78s, 33s and 45s, played on the six turntables they monitored. CDs and tapes were incorporated in later years.

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 due to the high cost and limited capabilities of computer hardware. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, consumer-grade personal computers became powerful enough to display various media. The primary technical issues related to streaming were having enough CPU and bus bandwidth to support the required data rates and achieving the real-time computing performance required to prevent buffer underruns and enable smooth streaming of the content. However, computer networks were still limited in the mid-1990s, and audio and video media were usually delivered over non-streaming channels, such as playback from a local hard disk drive or CD-ROMs on the end user's computer.

In 1990, the first commercial Ethernet switch was introduced by Kalpana, which enabled the more powerful computer networks that led to the first streaming video solutions used by schools and corporations.

Practical streaming media was only made possible with advances in data compression due to the impractically high bandwidth requirements of uncompressed media. Raw digital audio encoded with pulse-code modulation (PCM) requires a bandwidth of 1.4 Mbit/s for uncompressed CD audio, while raw digital video requires a bandwidth of 168 Mbit/s for SD video and over 1000 Mbit/s for FHD video.[7]

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, users had increased access to computer networks, especially the Internet. During the early 2000s, users had access to increased network bandwidth, especially in the last mile. These technological improvements facilitated the streaming of audio and video content to computer users in their homes and workplaces. There was also an increasing use of standard protocols and formats, such as TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML, as the Internet became increasingly commercialized, which led to an infusion of investment into the sector.

Xing Technology was founded in 1989 nd developed a JPEG streaming product called "StreamWorks". Another streaming product appeared in late 1992 and was named StarWorks.[12] StarWorks enabled on-demand MPEG-1 full-motion videos to be randomly accessed on corporate Ethernet networks. Starworks was from Starlight Networks, which also pioneered live video streaming on Ethernet and via Internet Protocol over satellites with Hughes Network Systems.[13] Other early companies that created streaming media technology include Progressive Networks and Protocomm prior to widespread World Wide Web usage. After the Netscape IPO in 1995 (and the release of Windows 95 with built-in TCP/IP support), usage of the Internet expanded, and many companies "went public", including Progressive Networks (which was renamed "RealNetworks", and listed on Nasdaq as "RNWK"). As the web became even more popular in the late 90s, streaming video on the internet blossomed from startups such as Vivo Software (later acquired by RealNetworks), VDOnet (acquired by RealNetworks), Precept (acquired by Cisco), and Xing (acquired by RealNetworks).[14]

Microsoft developed a media player known as ActiveMovie in 1995 that supported streaming media and included a proprietary streaming format, which was the precursor to the streaming feature later in Windows Media Player 6.4 in 1999. In June 1999, Apple also introduced a streaming media format in its QuickTime 4 application. It was later also widely adopted on websites, along with RealPlayer and Windows Media streaming formats. The competing formats on websites required each user to download the respective applications for streaming, which resulted in many users having to have all three applications on their computer for general compatibility.

In 2000, Industryview.com launched its "world's largest streaming video archive" website to help businesses promote themselves.[15] Webcasting became an emerging tool for business marketing and advertising that combined the immersive nature of television with the interactivity of the Web. The ability to collect data and feedback from potential customers caused this technology to gain momentum quickly.[16]

Around 2002, the interest in a single, unified, streaming format and the widespread adoption of Adobe Flash prompted the development of a video streaming format through Flash, which was the format used in Flash-based players on video hosting sites. The first popular video streaming site, YouTube, was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim in 2005. It initially used a Flash-based player, which played MPEG-4 AVC video and AAC audio, but now defaults to HTML5 video.[17] Increasing consumer demand for live streaming prompted YouTube to implement a new live streaming service for users.[18] The company currently also offers a (secure) link that returns the available connection speed of the user.[19]

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) revealed through its 2015, earnings report that streaming services were responsible for 34.3 percent of the year's total music industry's revenue, growing 29 percent from the previous year and becoming the largest source of income, pulling in around $2.4 billion.[20][21] US streaming revenue grew 57 percent to $1.6 billion in the first half of 2016 and accounted for almost half of industry sales.[22]

The term streaming wars was coined to discuss the new era (starting in 2019) of competition between video streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, and Peacock.[23]

The competition among online platforms has forced them to find ways to differentiate themselves. One key way they have done this is by offering exclusive content, often self-produced and created specifically for a market. This approach to streaming competition can have disadvantages for consumers and for the industry as a whole. Once content is made available online, the corresponding piracy searches decrease. Competition or legal availability across multiple platforms effectively deters online piracy, and more exclusivity does not necessarily translate into higher average investment in content because investment decisions are also dependent on the level and type of competition in online markets.[24]

This competition increased during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic as more people stayed home and watched TV. "The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a seismic shift in the film & TV industry in terms of how films are made, distributed, and screened. Many industries have been hit by the economic effects of the pandemic" (Totaro Donato).[1] In August 2022, a CNN headline declared, "The streaming wars are over" as pandemic-era restrictions had largely ended and audience growth had stalled. This led services to focus on profit over market share by cutting production budgets, cracking down on password sharing, and introducing ad-supported tiers.[25] A December 2022 article in The Verge echoed this, declaring an end to the "golden age of the streaming wars".[26] 2351a5e196