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What is media streaming exactly?

Hi all, I'm just wondering how you define media streaming... here's my situation.

I have a nettop running Windows XP with a nice RAID setup to store all my media files. Its in the same workgroup and all the media files are in a shared folder. To listen to music on my laptop or another PC, I just run Windows Media Player (personal preference, dont need suggestions on media players :P ) and load a playlist saved on the nettop's shared folder. To watch video, I browse to the file and run it.

I've been told this isn't streaming. I never said it was and it works fine for me but I was wondering what would count as streaming. Should all the audio/video processing be done at the server? What benefits does it have over the setup I'm currently using?

Thanks all :)

3 Answers

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  • Link H
    Lv 6
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Streaming, in a client-server context, is any method of playback that allows the playback of a recording to commence before the entire recording has been received by the terminal client playback device. This does not say anything about the quality of the playback as perceived by the consumer. It is designed to reduce the latency (time delay) before the starting of playback and, to a lesser extent, the size of data buffers needed at the terminal.

  • Chris
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    Streaming/Watching videos online = Streaming.

    You Merly playing the files from Comp - Comp.

    Hope it helps :)

    P.S: More Info -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media

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    5 years ago

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