2 . 6 Streaming Technologies-Audio/Video
One of the most interesting and useful technologies starting to crawl through the Web is data streaming. Data streaming is the connection of a large set of data on the server to the client, through a constantly flowing stream of data. For example a collection of audio that might be ten minutes long may be tens of Mb large. Ordinarily, you would have to wait for all the audio to be downloaded to your client browser machine before you started hearing it, with data streaming, a small portion is sent and you start hearing it almost instantaneously. While you are listening the steaming software simultaneously brings in new data...multitasking...hey what a concept!
2 . 6 . 1 Real Audio
The practicality of this streaming audio is hard to overstate. In fact, a company called RealAudio will be happy to sell you an audio server that dishes out audio streams that can be played back using free client software. Unlike much of the new whiz-bang-cool software out on the Net this software is truly useful. The RealAudio Web site serves National Public Radio. I enjoy listening to the news on NPR but I rarely get to listen to all of it. So, once in a while, I simply dial up NPR on the RealAudio site and listen to one of the many archived. It's like phone mail for radio; it just sits and waits there for you.
2 . 6 . 2 Video
Usable video conferencing is one of the major goals of Internet technology development. CU-See Me developed at Cornell University's Information Technology organization (CIT) has moved us closer to this goal. It initially was a Macintoshonly 4-bit grayscale window of conversing people. Since those days, it has moved towards color and the Windows platform. White Pine Software is commercializing the software for Windows and Win 95.
Another approach to desktop video is the Mbone. The Mbone uses a technology called multicasting, a tricky extension of the TCP/IP protocol. The Mbone is used primarily on higher-end workstation equipment with 56K or greater Internet connection. Its principal advantage is that it runs on many hardware platforms. The MBONE Information Web is a good place to find information on this technology.
A few companies are trying to marry streaming video to Web browsers. XING, a company with a significant track record in MPEG players, offers StreamWorks. The StreamWorks client is installed as a helper application for your Web browser. When you click on a video segment offered by a Web site, the StreamWorks client launches. On a 28K baud modem, the video quality is poor. However these are still pioneering days. It's amazing it works at all.
Another streaming video technology is offered by VDOLive. VDOlive is now being used by CBS News and Paramount in some novel streaming video experiments. The VDOLive system can function as a Netscape plug-in; the video appears inline, right on the Web page. They are touting concept of "desktop video broadcasting."
A VDOLive video stream playing inline on the Netscape Web browser.
Finally, Netscape, continuing its hyper-paced introduction of product enhancements, has a technology called LiveLinks for streaming data.
