Streaming / Video On Demand
What is the difference between streaming and downloading?
Streaming is real-time, and it's more efficient than downloading media files. If a video file is downloaded, a copy of the entire file is saved onto a device's hard drive, and the video cannot play until the entire file finishes downloading. If it's streamed instead, the browser plays the video without actually copying and saving it. The video loads a little bit at a time instead of the entire file loading at once, and the information that the browser loads is not saved locally.
Think of the difference between a lake and a stream: Both contain water, and a stream may contain just as much water as a lake; the difference is that with a stream, the water is not all in the same place at the same time. A downloaded video file is more like a lake, in that it takes up a lot of hard drive space (and it takes a long time to move a lake). Streaming video is more like a stream or a river, in that the video's data is continuously, rapidly flowing to the user's browser.
How does streaming work?
Just like other data that's sent over the Internet, audio and video data is broken down into data packets. Each packet contains a small piece of the file, and an audio or video player in the browser on the client device takes the flow of data packets and interprets them as video or audio.
Devices You Can Use For Streaming
When we talk about devices, we are actually refering to a combination of:
- the Physical Device - desktop computer, laptop, phone, tablet, smart tv, etc.
- and the Web Browser - Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, etc
Because our Video Streaming solution has been built as a Progressive Web App (PWA), it should work consistently well across all Physical Devices which have support for modern Web Browsers.
What is the difference between streaming and downloading?
Streaming is real-time, and it's more efficient than downloading media files. If a video file is downloaded, a copy of the entire file is saved onto a device's hard drive, and the video cannot play until the entire file finishes downloading. If it's streamed instead, the browser plays the video without actually copying and saving it. The video loads a little bit at a time instead of the entire file loading at once, and the information that the browser loads is not saved locally.
Think of the difference between a lake and a stream: Both contain water, and a stream may contain just as much water as a lake; the difference is that with a stream, the water is not all in the same place at the same time. A downloaded video file is more like a lake, in that it takes up a lot of hard drive space (and it takes a long time to move a lake). Streaming video is more like a stream or a river, in that the video's data is continuously, rapidly flowing to the user's browser.
How does streaming work?
Just like other data that's sent over the Internet, audio and video data is broken down into data packets. Each packet contains a small piece of the file, and an audio or video player in the browser on the client device takes the flow of data packets and interprets them as video or audio.
What About Poor Network Connections?
It goes without saying that with Streaming and Video On Demand solutions, a good network connection is a key factor in ensuring a good experience.
Our Video Streaming solutions and Video Player use something called Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) which, simply put, periodically looks at changes in your network conditions and then automatically selects the best quality video to play based on this.
This process will happen seamlessly and the switch in quality can happen many times during the course of a video - and normally it would have no impact on the overall video playback.
If your network quality varies a lot in a short time period for some reason, this can cause the player to re-buffer different qualities unnecessarily and cause what appears to be broken playback.
In this scenario, you can actually override the ABR process and instead select a specific quality:
- select the "cog / gear" icon in the video player
- change "Video quality" from "auto" to a specific bitrate
- the higher the bitrate, the better the quality, but also a greater need for a good network connectivity
Video streaming apps for mobile devices and TV
Available In October 2022, we will be launching are apps that deliver video content using the internet rather than cable or satellite TV. This allow you to instantly stream videos on both mobile devices (iOS and Android) and TVs using devices like a Roku Box, AppleTV, Android TV & Amazon Fire TV.
Downloading for Offline Access
Available in October 2022, we will be offering our customers the option to also download videos within our app and watch the in-app offline for 30 days after download. In-app downloading is separate from the download settings on the web platform. Viewing downloaded videos on mobile apps uses no data unless you are connected to wifi, at which time, very minimal data will be used as the app updates the servers of usage. Downloading videos on apps can use standard data of around 20 MB per minute of 1080p video.
How To Use Your Roku Device To Access Our Streaming Videos
Puppy Culture Roku available in October 2022.
Other Options
Casting to other Devices
With this option, you can cast the media available in your Video Library to other devices.
This allows you to access your Video Library on your Phone, Tablet or Laptop, but to view it on a big screen TV - the device you are casting from will then act as a remote controller.
Chromecast and Apple AirPlay are supported for the purpose of casting.
Screen Mirroring
With mirroring, you would typically access your Video Library on your Phone, Tablet or Laptop as normal, but then you would "mirror" the screen to a bigger screen via a mirroring device.
Amazon Firestick is just one of a number of devices which support screen mirroring.