[LINK] Streaming media - is it just me

[Markus Buchhorn]

At 15:49 11/04/2003 +1000, Tim O'Leary wrote:
>At 02:46 PM Friday 11/04/2003 +1000, bscott at gtlaw.com.au wrote:
>>Or do other people find streaming media irritating?  In the vast majority
>>of cases I'd like to download the relevant media item now and listen to it
>>in my own time later.  Unfortunately streaming media seem to be the only
>>thing on the menu in a lot of places.
>[...]
>There are programs that can capture streaming media - I forget them now - but I have used them.

The disadvantage with that approach is that the playout/capture is basically real-time. If you want to take it away for later use, you can download at your maximum rate achievable, hopefully faster than real-time :-) Conversely, you can download reliably, but streaming is an unreliable delivery (tcp vs udp) - so if you want better quality and are prepared to wait, a slow download may be preferable. It depends on the situation 
 - DVD-quality, download over 56k modem - cache patiently for quality; 
 - low-quality, download over your home 10Mb/s service - cache quickly for later viewing.

Some browsers do try and turn archived content into pretend-streaming files, even when they are not. In those cases you can just do a 'save as' instead. Check the link before clicking it.

I agree, streaming can be a nuisance sometimes. I know some organisations only offer streaming versions of content because it gives them a perceived sense of control ("people can't copy this and hand it round"). Clearly that isn't right, for those of us in the know (linkers and dogbert's new ruling class in particular), but for joe public it suffices. 

There are benefits to delivery from streaming servers, which are appropriate to streamed delivery (e.g. rate-selection, rate-adaptation), but they really do get in the way of personal-caching.

Cheers,
        Markus


Markus Buchhorn, ANU Internet Futures Project,        | Ph: +61 2 61258810
Markus.Buchhorn at anu.edu.au, mail: Bldg #108 - CS&IT   |Fax: +61 2 61259805
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