Streaming Video - The Popular Formats Used Today
Ever since its introduction in 1997, streaming video has always been one of the most popular technologies on the Internet. Streaming video allows a user to watch video content in real time just as is possible in the case of a TV broadcast. Streaming video can be delivered by the placement of a link to a video file in the HTML code of a web page. A user has to click the link for the video to start playing. This makes it easy for the user to save the video if he wants to watch it later. Another way to deliver streaming video is to embed the content in a Web page in such a manner that when the page is fully rendered by a suitable browser, the video starts playing in the browser window itself.
There are a number of video formats available in the market, which can be used to deliver streaming video content to the user. Here is a list of the most common video formats that you can use:
Windows Media Video (WMV) This is the proprietary video format from Microsoft Corporation. The streaming video is enveloped in the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) container format for delivery. Streaming video in this format can be played back through the use of Microsofts Windows Media Player on a Windows Platform and Windows Media Player for Mac on the Mac OS platform. Microsoft officially stopped the development of the latter and has now distributed a third party plug-in that allows Apple's QuickTime to handle Windows Media files. Linux users can access streaming video using the free VLC media player from the Videolan project. This is a great choice if you want the maximum number of people to watch streaming video.
QuickTime QuickTime is the reply of Apple Inc to Microsoft's Windows Media. This is a container file format and it carries streaming video, audio, effects, and subtitles text. Apple has released QuickTime for Windows which is under active development. The main reason for the deep penetration of this streaming video product from Apple is due to the popularity of their iTunes Store. RealVideo RealVideo is a streaming video format developed by RealNetworks, a company which has been the pioneer in streaming video and audio products over the web. The first version of this streaming video product, i.e., RealPlayer, was introduced by RealNetworks in 1997. At present, version 10 of RealPlayer is available. RealVideo provides a great size-to-quality ratio making it one of the best suited formats for streaming video. This streaming video format requires the proprietary RealPlayer to play and you will also need RealProducer, which is another product from RealNetworks, if you want to convert specific source videos to the PealVideo streaming video format. You should compare the pricing of the various streaming video formats from different companies to decide the most suitable streaming video format.
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