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Streaming media

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"Streaming" and "Streamed" redirect here. For other uses, seeStream (disambiguation).
"Media streaming" redirects here. For the feature in Microsoft Windows, seeDLNA.
This article is about streaming media in general. For the music listening format specifically, seeMusic streaming service.

On websites such as YouTube, videos such as this short NASA film about spacesuit design are playedinstantlydepending on the user's internet connection, and the video is partiallydownloadedin the background.
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Streaming mediarefers tomultimediafor playback using an offline or onlinemedia playerthat is delivered through anetwork.Media is transferred in a "stream" ofpacketsfrom aserverto aclientand is rendered in real-time;[1]this contrasts with filedownloading,a process in which the end-user obtains an entire media file before consuming the content. Streaming is presently most prevalent invideo-on-demand,streaming television,andmusic streaming servicesover the Internet.

While streaming is most commonly associated with multimedia from a remote server over the Internet, it also includesofflinemultimedia between devices on alocal area network,for example usingDLNA[2]and ahome server,or in apersonal area networkbetween two devices usingBluetooth(which usesradio wavesrather thanIP).[3]Online streaming was initially popularised byRealNetworksandMicrosoftin the 1990s[4]and has since grown to become the globally most popular method for consuming music and video,[5]with numerous competing subscription services being offered since the 2010s.[6]Audio streaming towireless speakers,often using Bluetooth, is another use that has become prevalent during that decade.[7]Live streamingis the real-time delivery of content during production, much aslive televisionbroadcasts content via television channels.[8]

Distinguishing delivery methods from the media applies specifically to, as most of the traditional media delivery systems are either inherentlystreaming(e.g., radio, television) or inherentlynon-streaming(e.g., books,videotapes,audio CDs). The term "streaming media" can apply to media other than video and audio, such as liveclosed captioning,ticker tape,andreal-time text,which are all considered "streaming text".

Etymology

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The term "streaming" was first used fortape drivesmanufactured 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 forvideo on demandand later live video onIP networks.It was first done byStarlight Networksfor video streaming andReal Networksfor audio streaming. Such video had previously been referred to by the misnomer "store and forward video."[9]

Precursors

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Beginning in 1881,Théâtrophoneenabled subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over telephone lines. This operated until 1932. The concept of media streaming eventually came to America.[10]

In the early 1920s,George Owen Squierwas granted patents for a system for the transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines,[11]which was the technical basis for what later becameMuzak,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.[12][13]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.

The business had a succession of owners, notably Bill Purse, his daughter Helen Reutzel, and finally Dotti White. The revenue stream for each quarter was split between 60% for the music service and 40% for the tavern owner.[14]This business model eventually became unsustainable due to city permits and the cost of setting up these telephone lines.[13]

History

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Early development

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See also:Timeline of online video

Attempts to display media oncomputersdate 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 enoughCPUandbusbandwidthto support the required data rates and achieving thereal-time computingperformance required to preventbuffer underrunsand 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 localhard disk driveorCD-ROMson the end user's computer.

Terminology in the 1970's was at best confusing for applications such as telemetered aircraft or missile test data. By then PCM [Pulse Code Modulation] was the dominant transmission type. This PCM transmission was bit-serial and not packetized so the 'streaming' terminology was often a confusion factor. In 1969 Grumman acquired one of the first telemetry ground stations [Automated Telemetry Station, 'ATS'] which had the capability for reconstructing serial telemetered data which had been recorded on digital computer peripheral tapes. Computer peripheral tapes were inherently recorded in blocks. Reconstruction was required for continuous display purposes without time-base distortion. The Navy implemented similar capability in DoD for the first time in 1973. These implementations are the only known examples of true 'streaming' in the sense of reconstructing distortion-free serial data from packetized or blocked recordings.[15]'Real-time' terminology has also been confusing in streaming context. The most accepted definition of 'real-time' requires that all associated processing or formatting of the data must take place prior to availability of the next sample of each measurement. In the 1970s the most powerful mainframe computers were not fast enough for this task at significant overall data rates in the range of 50,000 samples per second. For that reason both the Grumman ATS and the Navy Real-time Telemetry Processing System [RTPS] employed unique special purpose digital computers dedicated to real-time processing of raw data samples.

In 1990, the first commercialEthernet switchwas introduced byKalpana,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 indata compressiondue to the impractically high bandwidth requirements of uncompressed media. Rawdigital audioencoded withpulse-code modulation(PCM) requires a bandwidth of 1.4Mbit/sfor uncompressedCD audio,while rawdigital videorequires a bandwidth of 168Mbit/s forSD videoand over 1000Mbit/s forFHDvideo.[16]

Late 1990s to early 2000s

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See also:Original net animation

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 networkbandwidth,especially in thelast 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 asTCP/IP,HTTP,andHTML,as the Internet became increasingly commercialized, which led to an infusion of investment into the sector.

The bandSevere Tire Damagewas the first group to perform live on the Internet. On 24 June 1993, the band was playing a gig atXerox PARC,while elsewhere in the building, scientists were discussing new technology (theMbone) for broadcasting on the Internet usingmulticasting.As proof of PARC's technology, the band's performance was broadcast and could be seen live in Australia and elsewhere. In a March 2017 interview, band member Russ Haines stated that the band had used approximately "half of the total bandwidth of the internet" to stream the performance, which was a152 × 76pixel video, updated eight to twelve times per second, with audio quality that was, "at best, a bad telephone connection."[17]In October 1994, a school music festival was webcast from the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington, New Zealand. The technician who arranged the webcast, local council employee Richard Naylor, later commented: "We had 16 viewers in 12 countries."[18]

RealNetworkspioneered the broadcast of a baseball game between theNew York Yankeesand theSeattle Marinersover the Internet in 1995.[19]The first symphonic concert on the Internet—a collaboration between theSeattle Symphonyand guest musiciansSlash,Matt Cameron,andBarrett Martin—took place at theParamount TheaterinSeattle,Washington, on 10 November 1995.[20]

In 1996,Marc Scarpaproduced the first large-scale, online, live broadcast, theAdam Yauch–ledTibetan Freedom Concert,an event that would define the format of social change broadcasts. Scarpa continued to pioneer in the streaming media world with projects such asWoodstock '99,Townhall withPresident Clinton,and more recently Covered CA's campaign "Tell a Friend Get Covered", which was livestreamed on YouTube.

Business developments

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Xing Technologywas founded in 1989 and developed a JPEG streaming product called "StreamWorks". Another streaming product appeared in late 1992 and was named StarWorks.[21]StarWorks enabled on-demand MPEG-1 full-motion videos to be randomly accessed on corporateEthernetnetworks. Starworks was fromStarlight Networks,which also pioneered live video streaming on Ethernet and viaInternet Protocolover satellites withHughes Network Systems.[22]Other early companies that created streaming media technology include Progressive Networks and Protocomm prior to widespread World Wide Web usage. After theNetscape IPOin 1995 (and the release ofWindows 95with built-inTCP/IPsupport), usage of the Internet expanded, andmany companies "went public",including Progressive Networks (which was renamed "RealNetworks",and listed onNasdaqas "RNWK" ). As the web became even more popular in the late 90s, streaming video on the internet blossomed from startups such asVivo Software(later acquired by RealNetworks), VDOnet (acquired by RealNetworks), Precept (acquired byCisco), and Xing (acquired by RealNetworks).[23]

Microsoftdeveloped a media player known asActiveMoviein 1995 that supported streaming media and included a proprietary streaming format, which was the precursor to the streaming feature later inWindows Media Player6.4 in 1999. In June 1999,Applealso introduced a streaming media format in itsQuickTime4 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 launched its "world's largest streaming video archive" website to help businesses promote themselves.[24]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.[25]

Around 2002, the interest in a single, unified, streaming format and the widespread adoption ofAdobe Flashprompted the development of a video streaming format through Flash, which was the format used in Flash-based players onvideo hostingsites. The first popular video streaming site, YouTube, was founded bySteve Chen,Chad Hurley,andJawed Karimin 2005. It initially used a Flash-based player, which playedMPEG-4 AVCvideo andAACaudio, but now defaults toHTML video.[26]Increasing consumer demand for live streaming prompted YouTube to implement a new live streaming service for users.[27]The company currently also offers a (secure) link that returns the available connection speed of the user.[28]

TheRecording Industry Association of America(RIAA) revealed through its 2015, earnings report that streaming services were responsible for 34.3 percent of the year's totalmusic industry's revenue, growing 29 percent from the previous year and becoming the largest source of income, pulling in around $2.4 billion.[29][30]US streaming revenue grew 57 percent to $1.6 billion in the first half of 2016 and accounted for almost half of industry sales.[31]

Streaming wars

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See also:List of streaming media services
"Streaming wars" redirects here. For the South Park film, seeSouth Park The Streaming Wars.
For competition between music streaming platforms, see§ Music streaming platforms.
History oftelevision in the United States
Eras
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The termstreaming warswas coined to describe the new era (starting in the late 2010s) of competition between video streaming services such asNetflix,Amazon Prime Video,Hulu,Max,Disney+,Paramount+,Apple TV+,Peacock,and many more.[6][32]

The competition among online platforms has driven them to find ways to differentiate themselves from the rest. A key differentiator is offering exclusive content, often self-produced and created for a specificmarket segment.Research suggests that this approach to streaming competition can be disadvantageous for consumers by increasing spending across platforms, and for the industry as a whole by dilution of subscriber base. Once specific content is made available on a streaming service, piracy searches for the same content decrease; competition or legal availability across multiple platforms appears to deter online piracy. Exclusive content produced for subscription services such as Netflix tends to have a higher production budget than content produced exclusively forpay-per-viewservices, such as Amazon Prime Video.[33]

This competition increased during the first two years of theCOVID-19 pandemicas 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).[9]In August 2022, a CNN headline declared that "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.[34]A December 2022 article inThe Vergeechoed this, declaring an end to the "golden age of the streaming wars".[35]

In September 2023, several streaming services formed atrade associationnamed the Streaming Innovation Alliance (SIA), spearheaded byCharles Rivkinof theMotion Picture Association(MPA). FormerU.S. representativeFred Uptonand formerFederal Communications Commission(FCC) acting chairMignon Clyburnserve as senior advisors. Founding members include AfroLandTV, America Nu Network,BET+,Discovery+,Disney+,Disney+ Hotstar,ESPN+,For Us By Us Network,Hulu,Max,the MPA, MotorTrend+,Netflix,Paramount+,Peacock,Pluto TV,Star+,Telemundo,TelevisaUnivision,Vault TV, andVix.Notably absent wereApple,Amazon,Roku,andTubi.[36][37]

Use by the general public

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A cameralive streamingat a zoo byNiconico

Advances incomputer networking,combined with powerful home computers and operating systems, have made streaming media affordable and easy for the public. Stand-aloneInternet radio devicesemerged to offer listeners a non-technical option for listening to audio streams. These audio-streaming services became increasingly popular; streaming music reached 118.1 billion streams in 2013.[38]

Acar audioreceiver playing music being streamed via Bluetooth from a smartphone

In general, multimedia content is data-intensive, so media storage and transmission costs are still significant. Media is generallycompressedfor transport and storage. Increasing consumer demand for streaminghigh-definition(HD) content has led the industry to develop technologies such asWirelessHDandG.hn,which are optimized for streaming HD content. Many developers have introduced HD streaming apps that work on smaller devices, such as tablets and smartphones, for everyday purposes.

"Streaming creates the illusion—greatly magnified by headphone use, which is another matter—that music is a utility you can turn on and off; the water metaphor is intrinsic to how it works. It dematerializes music, denies it a crucial measure of autonomy, reality, and power. It makes music seem disposable, impermanent. Hence it intensifies the ebb and flow of pop fashion, the waymusical 'memes'rise up for a week or a month and are then forgotten. And it renders our experience of individual artists/groups shallower. "

—Robert Christgau,2018[39]

A media stream can be streamed eitherliveoron demand.Live streams are generally provided by a method calledtrue streaming.True streaming sends the information straight to the computer or device without saving it to a local file. On-demand streaming is provided by a method calledprogressive download.Progressive download saves the received information to a local file and then plays it from that location. On-demand streams are often saved to files for extended period of time, while live streams are only available at one time only (e.g., during a football game).[40]

Streaming media is increasingly being coupled with the use of social media. For example, sites such as YouTube encourage social interaction in webcasts through features such aslive chat,online surveys,user posting of comments online, and more. Furthermore, streaming media is increasingly being used forsocial businessande-learning.[41]

TheHorowitz ResearchState of Pay TV, OTT, and SVOD 2017 report said that 70 percent of those viewing content did so through a streaming service and that 40 percent of TV viewing was done this way, twice the number from five years earlier.Millennials,the report said, streamed 60 percent of the content.[42]

Transition from DVD

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One of the movie streaming industry's largest impacts was on the DVD industry, which drastically dropped in popularity and profitability with the mass popularization of online content.[43]The rise of media streaming caused the downfall of many DVD rental companies, such asBlockbuster.In July 2015,The New York Timespublished an article aboutNetflix's DVD services. It stated that Netflix was continuing their DVD services with 5.3 million subscribers, which was a significant drop from the previous year. On the other hand, their streaming service had 65 million members.[44]

Napster

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Music streamingis one of the most popular ways in which consumers interact with streaming media. In the age of digitization, theprivate consumptionof music has transformed into apublic good,largely due to one player in the market: Napster.

Napster,apeer-to-peer(P2P) file-sharing network where users could upload and downloadMP3files freely, broke all music industry conventions when it launched in early 1999 in Hull, Massachusetts. The platform was developed by Shawn and John Fanning as well asSean Parker.[45]In an interview from 2009, Shawn Fanning explained that Napster "was something that came to me as a result of seeing a sort of unmet need and the passion people had for being able to find all this music, particularly a lot of the obscure stuff, which wouldn't be something you go to a record store and purchase, so it felt like a problem worth solving."[46]

Not only did this development disrupt the music industry by making songs that previously required payment to be freely accessible to any Napster user, but it also demonstrated the power of P2P networks in turning any digital file into a public, shareable good. For the brief period of time that Napster existed, mp3 files fundamentally changed as a type of good. Songs were no longer financially excludable, barring access to a computer with internet access, and they were not rivals, meaning if one person downloaded a song, it did not diminish another user from doing the same. Napster, like most other providers of public goods, faced thefree-rider problem.Every user benefits when an individual uploads an mp3 file, but there is no requirement or mechanism that forces all users to share their music. Generally, the platform encouraged sharing; users who downloaded files from others often had their own files available for upload as well. However, not everyone chose to share their files. There was no a built-in incentive specifically discouraging users from sharing their own files.[47]

This structure revolutionized the consumer's perception of ownership overdigital goods;it made music freely replicable. Napster quickly garnered millions of users, growing faster than any other business in history. At the peak of its existence, Napster boasted about 80 million users globally. The site gained so much traffic that many college campuses had to block access to Napster because it created network congestion from so many students sharing music files.[48]

The advent of Napster sparked the creation of numerous other P2P sites, includingLimeWire(2000),BitTorrent(2001), andthe Pirate Bay(2003). The reign of P2P networks was short-lived. The first to fall was Napster in 2001. Numerous lawsuits were filed against Napster by various record labels, all of which were subsidiaries ofUniversal Music Group,Sony MusicEntertainment,Warner Music Group,orEMI.In addition to this, theRecording Industry Association of America(RIAA) also filed a lawsuit against Napster on the grounds of unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, which ultimately led Napster to shut down in 2001.[48]In an interview with theNew York Times,Gary Stiffelman, who representsEminem,Aerosmith,andTLC,explained, "I'm not an opponent of artists' music being included in these services, I'm just an opponent of their revenue not being shared."[49]

The fight for intellectual property rights:A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.

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The lawsuitA&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.fundamentally changed the way consumers interact with music streaming. It was argued on 2 October 2000, and was decided on 12 February 2001. TheCourt of Appealsfor the Ninth Circuit ruled that a P2P file-sharing service could be held liable for contributory and vicarious infringement of copyright, serving as a landmark decision for Intellectual property law.[50]

The first issue that the Court addressed wasfair use,which says that otherwise infringing activities are permissible so long as they are for purposes "such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [...] scholarship, or research."[51]Judge Beezer, the judge for this case, noted that Napster claimed that its services fit "three specific alleged fair uses:sampling,where users make temporary copies of a work before purchasing; space-shifting, where users access a sound recording through the Napster system that they already own in audio CD format; and permissive distribution of recordings by both new and established artists. "[51]Judge Beezer found that Napster did not fit these criteria, instead enabling their users to repeatedly copy music, which would affect the market value of the copyrighted good.

The second claim by the plaintiffs was that Napster was actively contributing tocopyright infringementsince it had knowledge of widespread file sharing on its platform. Since Napster took no action to reduce infringement and financially benefited from repeated use, the court ruled against the P2P site. The court found that "as much as eighty-seven percent of the files available on Napster may be copyrighted and more than seventy percent may be owned or administered by plaintiffs."[51]

Theinjunctionordered against Napster ended the brief period in which music streaming was a public good – non-rival and non-excludable in nature. Other P2P networks had some success at sharing MP3s, though they all met a similar fate in court. The ruling set the precedent that copyrighted digital content cannot be freely replicated and shared unless given consent by the owner, thereby strengthening the property rights of artists and record labels alike.[50]

Music streaming platforms

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Main article:Music streaming service
As music streaming platforms have become more prevalent in the US, music piracy rates have fallen. Piracy rates are calculated as a function of US total population.[52]

Although music streaming is no longer a freely replicable public good, streaming platforms such asSpotify,Deezer,Apple Music,SoundCloud,YouTube Music,andAmazon Musichave shifted music streaming to aclub-type good.While some platforms, most notably Spotify, give customers access to afreemiumservice that enables the use of limited features for exposure to advertisements, most companies operate under a premium subscription model.[53]Under such circumstances, music streaming is financially excludable, requiring that customers pay a monthly fee for access to a music library, but non-rival, since one customer's use does not impair another's.

There is competition between services similar but lesser to the streaming wars for video media. As of 2019Spotify has over 207 million users in 78 countries,[54]As of 2018Apple Music has about 60 million, and SoundCloud has 175 million.[55]All platforms provide varying degrees of accessibility. Apple Music and Prime Music only offer their services for paid subscribers, whereas Spotify and SoundCloud offer freemium and premium services. Napster, owned by Rhapsody since 2011, has resurfaced as a music streaming platform offering subscription-based services to over 4.5 million users as of January 2017.[56]

The music industry's response to music streaming was initially negative. Along with music piracy, streaming services disrupted the market and contributed to the fall in US revenue from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in 2009. CDs and single-track downloads were not selling because content was freely available on the Internet. By 2018, however, music streaming revenue exceeded that of traditional revenue streams (e.g. record sales, album sales, downloads).[57]Streaming revenue is now one of the largest driving forces behind the growth in the music industry.

COVID-19 pandemic

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By August 2020, theCOVID-19 pandemichad streaming services busier than ever. In the UK alone, twelve million people joined a new streaming service that they had not previously had.[58]

An impact analysis of 2020 data by theInternational Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers(CISAC) indicated that remuneration from digital streaming of music increased with a strong rise in digital royalty collection (up 16.6% to EUR 2.4 billion), but it would not compensate the overall loss of income of authors from concerts, public performance and broadcast.[59]TheInternational Federation of the Phonographic Industry(IFPI) recompiled the music industry initiatives around the world related to the COVID-19. In its State of the Industry report, it recorded that the global recorded music market grew by 7.4% in 2022, the 6th consecutive year of growth. This growth was driven by streaming, mostly from paid subscription streaming revenues which increased by 18.5%, fueled by 443 million users of subscription accounts by the end of 2020.[60]

The COVID-19 pandemic has also driven an increase in misinformation and disinformation, particularly on streaming platforms like YouTube andpodcasts.[61]

Local/home streaming

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A TV set streaming an audio file from a localhome server

Streaming also refers to the offline streaming of multimedia at home. This is made possible by technologies such asDLNA,which allow devices on the same local network to connect to each other and share media.[62][63]Such capabilities are heightened usingnetwork-attached storage(NAS) devices at home, or using specialized software likePlex Media Server,JellyfinorTwonkyMedia.[64]

Technologies

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Bandwidth

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A broadband speed of 2 Mbit/s or more is recommended for streamingstandard-definition video,[65]for example to aRoku,Apple TV,Google TVor a Sony TV Blu-ray Disc Player. 5 Mbit/s is recommended for high-definition content and 9 Mbit/s forultra-high-definition content.[66]Streaming media storage size is calculated from the streaming bandwidth and length of the media using the following formula (for a single user and file): storage size inmegabytesis equal to length (in seconds) ×bit rate(in bit/s) / (8 × 1024 × 1024). For example, one hour of digital video encoded at 300 kbit/s (this was a typical broadband video in 2005 and it was usually encoded in320 × 240resolution) will be: (3,600 s × 300,000 bit/s) / (8 × 1024 × 1024) requires around 128MBof storage.

If the file is stored on a server for on-demand streaming and this stream is viewed by 1,000 people at the same time using aUnicastprotocol, the requirement is 300 kbit/s × 1,000 = 300,000 kbit/s = 300 Mbit/s of bandwidth. This is equivalent to around 135GBper hour. Using amulticastprotocol the server sends out only a single stream that is common to all users. Therefore, such a stream would only use 300 kbit/s of server bandwidth.

In 2018 video was more than 60% of data traffic worldwide and accounted for 80% of growth in data usage.[67][68]

Protocols

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Unicast connections require multiple connections from the same streaming server even when it streams the same content.

Video and audio streams are compressed to make the file size smaller.Audio coding formatsincludeMP3,Vorbis,AACandOpus.Video coding formatsincludeH.264,HEVC,VP8andVP9.Encoded audio and video streams are assembled in a containerbitstreamsuch asMP4,FLV,WebM,ASForISMA.The bitstream is delivered from a streaming server to a streaming client (e.g., the computer user with their Internet-connected laptop) using a transport protocol, such as Adobe'sRTMPorRTP.

In the 2010s, technologies such as Apple'sHLS,Microsoft's Smooth Streaming, Adobe's HDS and non-proprietary formats such asMPEG-DASHemerged to enableadaptive bitrate streamingoverHTTPas an alternative to using proprietary transport protocols. Often, a streaming transport protocol is used to send video from an event venue to acloudtranscoding service andcontent delivery network,which then uses HTTP-based transport protocols to distribute the video to individual homes and users.[69]The streaming client (the end user) may interact with the streaming server using a control protocol, such asMMSorRTSP.

The quality of the interaction between servers and users is based on the workload of the streaming service; as more users attempt to access a service the quality may be affected by resource constraints in the service.[70]Deploying clusters of streaming servers is one such method where there are regional servers spread across the network, managed by a singular, central server containing copies of all the media files as well as theIP addressesof the regional servers. This central server then usesload balancingandschedulingalgorithms to redirect users to nearby regional servers capable of accommodating them. This approach also allows the central server to provide streaming data to both users as well as regional servers usingFFmpeglibraries if required, thus demanding the central server to have powerful data processing and immense storage capabilities. In return, workloads on the streaming backbone network are balanced and alleviated, allowing for optimal streaming quality.[71][needs update]

Designing a network protocol to support streaming media raises many problems.Datagramprotocols, such as theUser Datagram Protocol(UDP), send the media stream as a series of small packets. This is simple and efficient; however, there is no mechanism within the protocol to guarantee delivery. It is up to the receiving application to detect loss or corruption and recover data usingerror correctiontechniques. If data is lost, the stream may suffer adropout.TheReal-Time Streaming Protocol(RTSP),Real-time Transport Protocol(RTP) and theReal-time Transport Control Protocol(RTCP) were specifically designed to stream media over networks. RTSP runs over a variety of transport protocols, while the latter two are built on top of UDP.

HTTP adaptive bitrate streaming is based on HTTP progressive download, but contrary to the previous approach, here the files are very small, so that they can be compared to the streaming of packets, much like the case of using RTSP and RTP.[72]Reliable protocols, such as theTransmission Control Protocol(TCP), guarantee correct delivery of each bit in the media stream. It means, however, that when there is data loss on the network, the media stream stalls while the protocol handlers detect the loss and retransmit the missing data. Clients can minimize this effect by buffering data for display. While delay due to buffering is acceptable in video-on-demand scenarios, users of interactive applications such as video conferencing will experience a loss of fidelity if the delay caused by buffering exceeds 200 ms.[73]

Multicasting broadcasts the same copy of the multimedia over the entire network to a group of clients

Unicastprotocols send a separate copy of the media stream from the server to each recipient. Unicast is the norm for most Internet connections but does not scale well when many users want to view the same television program concurrently.Multicastprotocols were developed to reduce server and network loads resulting from duplicate data streams that occur when many recipients receive unicast content streams independently. These protocols send a single stream from the source to a group of recipients. Depending on the network infrastructure and type, multicast transmission may or may not be feasible. One potential disadvantage of multicasting is the loss ofvideo on demandfunctionality. Continuous streaming of radio or television material usually precludes the recipient's ability to control playback. However, this problem can be mitigated by elements such as caching servers, digitalset-top boxes,and bufferedmedia players.

IP multicastprovides a means to send a single media stream to a group of recipients on acomputer network.A connection management protocol, usuallyInternet Group Management Protocol,is used to manage the delivery of multicast streams to the groups of recipients on a LAN. One of the challenges in deploying IP multicast is that routers and firewalls between LANs must allow the passage of packets destined to multicast groups. If the organization that is serving the content has control over the network between server and recipients (i.e., educational, government, and corporateintranets), then routing protocols such asProtocol Independent Multicastcan be used to deliver stream content to multiplelocal area networksegments.

Peer-to-peer(P2P) protocols arrange for prerecorded streams to be sent between computers. This prevents the server and its network connections from becoming a bottleneck. However, it raises technical, performance, security, quality, and business issues.

Content delivery networks(CDNs) use intermediate servers to distribute the load. Internet-compatible unicast delivery is used between CDN nodes and streaming destinations.

Recording

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Media that is livestreamed can be recorded through certain media players, such asVLC player,or through the use of ascreen recorder.Live-streaming platforms such asTwitchmay also incorporate avideo on demandsystem that allows automatic recording of live broadcasts so that they can be watched later.[74]YouTube also has recordings of live broadcasts, including television shows aired on major networks. These streams have the potential to be recorded by anyone who has access to them, whether legally or otherwise.[75]

View recommendation

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Most streaming services feature arecommender systemfor viewing based on each user's view history in conjunction with all viewers' aggregated view histories. Rather than focusing on subjective categorization of content by content curators), there is an assumption that, with the immensity of data collected on viewing habits, the choices of those who are first to view content can be algorithmically extrapolated to the totality of the user base, with increasing probabilistic accuracy as to the likelihood of their choosing and enjoying the recommended content as more data is collected.[76]

Applications and marketing

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Useful and typical applications of streaming are, for example, longvideo lecturesperformed online.[77]An advantage of this presentation is that these lectures can be very long, although they can always be interrupted or repeated at arbitrary places. Streaming enables new content marketing concepts. For example, theBerlin Philharmonic Orchestrasells Internet live streams of whole concerts instead of several CDs or similar fixed media in theirDigital Concert Hall[78]using YouTube fortrailers.These online concerts are also spread over a lot of different places, including cinemas at various places on the globe. A similar concept is used by theMetropolitan Operain New York. There is alsoa livestreamfrom theInternational Space Station.[79][80]In video entertainment, video streaming platforms likeNetflix,Hulu,andDisney+are mainstream elements of the media industry.[81]

Marketers have found many opportunities offered by streaming media and the platforms that offer them, especially in light of the significant increase in the use of streaming media duringCOVID lockdownsfrom 2020 onwards. While revenue and placement oftraditional advertisingcontinued to decrease,digital marketingincreased by 15% in 2021,[82]withdigital mediaandsearchrepresenting 65% of the expenditures.

A case study commissioned by the WIPO[83]indicates that streaming services attract advertising budgets with the opportunities provided by interactivity and the use of data from users, resulting in personalization on a mass scale withcontent marketing.[84]Targeted marketing is expanding with the use ofartificial intelligence,in particular programmatic advertisement, a tool that helps advertisers decide their campaign parameters and whether they are interested in buying advertising space online or not. One example of advertising space acquisition is Real-Time Bidding (RTB).[85]

Challenges

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See also:Copyright aspects of downloading and streaming

Forover-the-top media service(OTT) platforms, the original content captures additional subscribers.[86]This presents copyright issues and the potential for international exploitation through streaming,[87]widespread use of standards, and metadata in digital files.[88]The WIPO has indicated several basic copyright issues arising for those pursuing work in the film[89][90]and music industries[91]in the era of streaming.

Streaming copyrighted content can involve making infringing copies of the works in question. The recording and distribution of streamed content is also an issue for many companies that rely on revenue based on views or attendance.[92]

See also

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References

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Further reading

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