Unit 8 – Task 4 – Streaming Websites

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Unit 8 – Task 4 – Developing Technologies Mini Essay – Streaming Websites
By Chelsie Brandrick
I. INTRODUCTION
Streaming media is a term that describes to the process of constantly receiving and
presenting media to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb ‘to
stream’ typically refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium
itself and is a n alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains
the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it rather than whilst they’re
watching or listening to it. An end-user can use their media player, such as phone, tablet
or laptop to begin to play the data file before the entire file has been transmitted.
Popular streaming sites like YouTube and Netflix have taken the world by a storm and
are now used by billions of people around the world.
II. HISTORY
On September 5 1995, ESPN Sports Zone streamed a live radio broadcast of a baseball
game between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees to thousands of its
subscribers worldwide using cutting edge technology developed by Seattle based start-
up company, Progressive Networks. This was widely recognised as the first streaming
event in history and paved the way for sites like Hulu and Netflix that are household
names over 20 years later. A few years after this event, Progressive Networks changed
their name to Real Networks and found itself involved in a bitter legal battle with
Microsoft for the domination of the new technology market.
Microsoft won the battle with Real Networks but later found itself unable to capitalise
on the victory, as they couldn’t solve the problem of how to successfully stream
watchable video over 56k modem lines. Meanwhile Macromedia, later bought by
Adobe, was favoured in the early 2000s for its increasingly popular Flash Player. Flash
seamlessly married interactivity, Web 2.0 and streaming media for the first time, which
shook up the media industry.
By the mid 2000s a new era in streaming media was resent by the old problems of
bandwidth, scalability and reach still remained. At this time the majority of the Internet
traffic was HTTP-based and content delivery networks were increasingly being used to

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ensure delivery of popular content to large audiences. Streaming media suddenly began
to struggle to keep up with the demand.
However in 2007, Move Networks introduced HTTP-based adaptive streaming which
the media industry. Instead of relying on the previous streaming protocols and leaving
users to fight the Internet bandwidth problems, Move Networks used the HTTP protocol
to deliver media in small file sizes while utilising the player application to monitor
download speeds and request chunks of varying size in response to changing network
conditions. The new technology had a new impact as it allowed users to stream media
efficiently and have it distributed far and wide whilst eliminating annoying buffering
and connectivity issues.
Other HTTP-based adaptive streaming solutions soon followed. Microsoft launched its
smooth streaming technology in 2008, the same year as Netflix developed its own
technology to power its pioneering Watch Instantly streaming service. Apple followed
in 2009 with their technology designed for iOS devices and Abode joined in 2010.
In recent years big companies have used the growing streaming industry to showcase
events like the Olympics, Wimbledon and Felix Baumgartner’s Stratos jump. Now the
streaming industry is huge, in the United States, streaming revenue grew 57% to $1.6
billion in the first half of 2016 alone.
III. ADVANTAGES
Since the birth of the technology over 20 years ago, streaming has improved the quality
of leisure time for millions of people around the world. Regular satellite television has
been upgraded and now thanks to streaming, consumers can take their favorite show
anywhere they please. Many streaming sites allow users to watch on multiple devices
and have the option to download content to watch offline if they wish. This encourages
television and movie watching in places that you could never imagine before. Now by
the click of a button and a small fee each month, users can watch their favourite
television show on a break at work, at the airport or simply when they are in a location
that doesn’t have good or any internet.
Streaming sites also enable the users to have access to nearly every television show and
movie in existence. Netflix especially has a great variety of original television shows

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and movies as well as multiple others ranging from classics to unlikely hopefuls. This
feature not only allows users to catch up on shows they have missed or have wanted to
see but it saves money as the small fee Netflix charge (£5 a month) is far cheaper than
buying DVDs, cinema tickets or cable television.
IV. DISADVANTAGES
However, unless the user of a streaming website has downloaded the content they desire
to watch or the Wi-Fi is working brilliantly the connection and image quality can be
slow and dull. If the user is in a location that has poor Internet then they will have to
wait until they return to a good Internet zone. Plus downloading content can take a
while and use up a significant amount of memory on your device, which is not ideal as
it can make the device become slow.
Although streaming sites offer a multitude of shows and movies not all of them last
forever as a DVD would. Unless a show is specific to the platform, such as a Netflix
Original, then it will eventually disappear. Some films return but a lot don’t which can
be frustrating if a user is waiting for a certain movie to arrive on a streaming site.
Streaming sites are slowing killing the film industry, as many movies end up on Netflix
or Amazon Prime, a lot less people are going to the cinema. But the experiences are
certainly different. Watching a film at the cinema enables the viewer to become a part
of a group who are all enjoying the same movie and it becomes an immersive
experience that connects you with the production. That doesn’t compare to watching the
same film on an iPad alone in bed whilst waiting for it to buffer every 10 minutes.
Streaming services can be great but they have many drawbacks in comparison to older
technologies.
V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, streaming is a relatively new technology that enables users of streaming
sites to watch a large amount of content on the go for a small fee per month. It has
revolutionised the way in which people consume television and movies as well as
encouraged many people to watch more television, which can be seen as a bad lifestyle,
but it is certainly good for the television industry. As the technology is new it doesn’t
cover all the criteria to make it the number 1 way to watch television or movies, but as
time passes I hope that the streaming industry will fix the problems such as not keeping

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a permanent back log of movies always available and buffering issues, which will
improve streaming sites significantly.
Word Count: 1161.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Websites
Shaw, L. 2016. The Music Industry is Finally Making Money on Streaming. [Online].
[Accessed 30 April 2017]. Available from:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-20/spotify-apple-drive-u-s-music-
industry-s-8-first-half-growth
Wikipedia. 2004. Streaming Media. [Online]. [Accessed 30 April 2017]. Available
from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media