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Data Streaming
Data streaming is a method used to transfer data from a remote server to a user’s computer or mobile device, allowing an application to run without having to wait until the file has downloaded completely. Data streaming is used extensively by large and small businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, private users, and others to deliver online video and other content to anyone with Internet connectivity.
Web browsers have brought Internet access to the general public and changed the way that information, services, and instruction are delivered by allowing users to access data stored on servers across the globe. During the early years of the Web, accessing text-dominated webpages could occur quickly and efficiently, even on low-powered computers with slow dial-up Internet access. The addition of graphics to the Internet required the development of file formats, such as GIF (graphics interchange format), JPEG (for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the committee that developed the JPEG standard), and PNG (portable network graphics), that could compress the data and decrease file sizes and the amount of time needed to display images.
Throughout the past century, educators valued the incorporation of moving pictures and sound into the teaching and learning process. Film projectors, television sets, players for videocassettes, videodiscs, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs, and computers have been featured prominently in numerous classrooms. The advent of online courses in the 1990s came with the promise of delivering the educational experience of the classroom, including multimedia content, to the user’s computer and later to mobile devices. This entry first discusses some of the challenges in delivering media over the Internet and how data streaming can overcome these challenges. It then explains how data streaming works and discusses its implications for learning.
Challenges of Delivering Media Over the Internet
The very large size of audio and video media and the comparably small bandwidth available to transfer the files from servers to home computers presented a challenge to online multimedia delivery. An additional difficulty was the requirement that a media file be downloaded completely from the remote server prior to user access of the content. This is particularly evident when using online video, since each minute of a typical 30-frame-per-second video requires approximately 200 megabytes of storage. Even short videos took several minutes to download, while more lengthy videos could take hours before they could be viewed.
The initial approach was to increase the bandwidth of Internet connections and compress video files. Broadband technologies such as cable and DSL (digital subscriber line, originally digital subscriber loop) were created to allow for higher bandwidth and faster transfer rates from the Internet to individual users’ devices. Computer programs were developed to carry large data files more efficiently cross the Internet. These programs are called codecs, for compression/decompression or coding/decoding. A codec compresses a data file into much smaller packets of data that can be transferred quickly across a network and then decompresses the packets so that the file can be run by the user. Popular codecs include H.264/MPEG-4 (used for video conferencing; Blu-ray discs; and Internet streaming services, such as iTunes Store, YouTube and Vimeo, Windows Media, and Apple QuickTime) for video and MP3 for audio (MPEG and MP3 refer to the Moving Picture Experts Group, formed to set standards for audio and video compression). The data are stored in an audio or video file format (sometimes referred to as a wrapper or container). Common file formats include MP4, WMV (Windows Media), Ogg, FLV (Flash Video), AVI (Audio Video Interleaved), and MOV. The third component needed is software on the user’s device—often a browser plug-in or other application—that can play the media file. Popular media playback applications are Windows Media Player, Apple QuickTime Player, Adobe Flash Player, and RealPlayer.
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