A technique for transferring data such that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream. Streaming technologies are becoming increasingly important with the growth of the Internet because most users do not have fast enough access to download large multimedia files quickly. With streaming, the client browser or plug-in can start displaying the data before the entire file has been transmitted.

For streaming to work, the client side receiving the data must be able to collect the data and send it as a steady stream to the application that is processing the data and converting it to sound or pictures. This means that if the streaming client receives the data more quickly than required, it needs to save the excess data in a buffer. If the data doesn't come quickly enough, however, the presentation of the data will not be smooth.

There are a number of competing streaming technologies emerging. For audio data on the Internet, the de facto standard is Progressive Network's RealAudio.

Streaming bandwidth and storage
Streaming media storage size (in the common file system measurements mebibytes, gibibytes, tebibytes, and so on) is calculated from streaming bandwidth and length of the media with the following formula (for a single user and file):

storage size (in megabytes) = length (in seconds) · bit rate (in kbit/s) / 8,388.608

(since 1 megabyte = 8 * 1,048,576 bits = 8,388.608 kilobits)

Real world example:

One hour of video encoded at 300 kbit/s (this is a typical broadband video for 2005 and it's usually encoded in a 320×240 pixels window size) will be:

(3,600 s · 300 kbit/s) / 8,388.608 = 128.7 MiB of storage

if the file is stored on a server for on-demand streaming. If this stream is viewed by 1,000 people, you would need

300 kbit/s · 1,000 = 300,000 kbit/s = 300 Mbit/s of bandwidth

This is equivalent to 125.73 GiB per hour.

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J. Jeyaseelan
Everything Possible