Streaming query

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mike Barnes
writes:
[]
Fortunately CDs are still available, and with the higher quality DACs
available today, can sound better than they ever did. Most DACs are
poor, though, and many modern recordings are pre-ruined in the studio.

Indeed - probably the worst culprit being audio-level compression.
(Which has the strange effect that old vinyls can be better than modern
CDs, at least as far as dynamic range is concerned - despite the
considerably more limited dynamic range of the medium.)
[]
I'm amazed by the fullness of sound available from quite small
speakers nowadays. But I think if I listened to one for any length of
time, its

Indeed; they have come on a lot - and also, battery technology _really_
has, so it's practical to just throw a lot more power at them than it
used to be.

limitations would soon become apparent.

Indeed. My old Solavoxes still sound good. (And they weren't
particularly high quality [It was one of the pen-names of Amstrad, I
think]! Just not ported.)

Another factor is "noise reduction". I've switched my DAB radio to FM on
good-quality Denon and Sandstrom equipment, put my ear right up against
the speakers, and there's hardly any hiss-and-puff. It's being filtered
out; but that reduces what I'd call "quality", because some of the
higher and lower frequencies get very severely chopped.
In addition to that there are so many controls available to alter the
output; the bass, the treble; preset equalisation settings that they
call "speech" and "auditorium" or "bathroom" and "living room". Most
people have simply got one of those set, and they too reduce the "quality".

Ed

pjp wrote:

I've become curious about what streaming audio/video is all about.

For years now I've had pcs with shared folders that contain multi-media
material that is accessible from all the pcs in the house. Three of the
pcs are hooked up with video out to a tv and audio sent to the
accompanying stereo. When you want to watch something you simply select
the proper input for that tv and then access the network share, select
what you want and it plays on that system. Has wrked fine ever since got
first video card had video out on it more than a decade ago now. I do
not think of this as streaming.

Because this ability has been around for years now I don't really
understand this streaming business when it's in house. For example, why
does Windows want to stream anything when it's so easy "my way"?

So I'm thinking the streaming must be for devices that can't decode
anything themselves, e.g. tv's. The stream is not the raw "data" in the
usual sense I think of it but rather what's sent down the wire is
something else. If so, what?

It's obvious when it's the Internet (and money) involved but ... again,
why the streaming for personal in house use?


I've got a working definition of "streaming".

I have a PC in my home. There's a video file held on a server somewhere.
I want to watch it.
I could simply download the full thing, save it and play it in WMP.
Or I could "stream" it. That means downloading and playing it at the
same time.
What's involved are these functions.
1. The server sends the file to my PC (as with any download).
2. WMP has a buffer to receive the file, and it plays it all the while.
It's adding at the end of the file, and playing from the beginning. You
need a download speed fast enough to add more to the file than is being
played. If not you get the buffering pauses.

A friend says what about when he streams from his iPad to his TV.
Well, that's exactly as above but with an addition. The iPad does just
the same. Additionally the iPad has a program resident that displays
everything also on his TV (his TV having a program that handles the
input from the iPad).

You can add frills to the above; eg. you can delete played content from
the download, which is what Netflix does. But I think the concept of
"streaming" is depicted.
And that gives me a definition, something like this.
Streaming is transmitting a file and using that file as it comes.

Ed

In article , says...

pjp wrote:

I've become curious about what streaming audio/video is all about.

For years now I've had pcs with shared folders that contain multi-media
material that is accessible from all the pcs in the house. Three of the
pcs are hooked up with video out to a tv and audio sent to the
accompanying stereo. When you want to watch something you simply select
the proper input for that tv and then access the network share, select
what you want and it plays on that system. Has wrked fine ever since got
first video card had video out on it more than a decade ago now. I do
not think of this as streaming.

Because this ability has been around for years now I don't really
understand this streaming business when it's in house. For example, why
does Windows want to stream anything when it's so easy "my way"?

So I'm thinking the streaming must be for devices that can't decode
anything themselves, e.g. tv's. The stream is not the raw "data" in the
usual sense I think of it but rather what's sent down the wire is
something else. If so, what?

It's obvious when it's the Internet (and money) involved but ... again,
why the streaming for personal in house use?


I've got a working definition of "streaming".

I have a PC in my home. There's a video file held on a server somewhere.
I want to watch it.
I could simply download the full thing, save it and play it in WMP.
Or I could "stream" it. That means downloading and playing it at the
same time.
What's involved are these functions.
1. The server sends the file to my PC (as with any download).
2. WMP has a buffer to receive the file, and it plays it all the while.
It's adding at the end of the file, and playing from the beginning. You
need a download speed fast enough to add more to the file than is being
played. If not you get the buffering pauses.

A friend says what about when he streams from his iPad to his TV.
Well, that's exactly as above but with an addition. The iPad does just
the same. Additionally the iPad has a program resident that displays
everything also on his TV (his TV having a program that handles the
input from the iPad).

You can add frills to the above; eg. you can delete played content from
the download, which is what Netflix does. But I think the concept of
"streaming" is depicted.

To me "Streaming" is when the content is simply "spit out there" for
anyone to connect to and watch, all simultaneously listening to same
content at same time. Much like I assume radio stations on the internet
work like, most webcams etc. Specifically selecting and then downloading
some content from some computer somewhere to another computer somewhere
is not streaming but simply downloading. That's what Netflix and the
like do.

That's my distinction.

On Tue, 10 Nov 2015 14:20:47 -0400, pjp
wrote:

In article , says...

pjp wrote:

I've become curious about what streaming audio/video is all about.

For years now I've had pcs with shared folders that contain multi-media
material that is accessible from all the pcs in the house. Three of the
pcs are hooked up with video out to a tv and audio sent to the
accompanying stereo. When you want to watch something you simply select
the proper input for that tv and then access the network share, select
what you want and it plays on that system. Has wrked fine ever since got
first video card had video out on it more than a decade ago now. I do
not think of this as streaming.

Because this ability has been around for years now I don't really
understand this streaming business when it's in house. For example, why
does Windows want to stream anything when it's so easy "my way"?

So I'm thinking the streaming must be for devices that can't decode
anything themselves, e.g. tv's. The stream is not the raw "data" in the
usual sense I think of it but rather what's sent down the wire is
something else. If so, what?

It's obvious when it's the Internet (and money) involved but ... again,
why the streaming for personal in house use?


I've got a working definition of "streaming".

I have a PC in my home. There's a video file held on a server somewhere.
I want to watch it.
I could simply download the full thing, save it and play it in WMP.
Or I could "stream" it. That means downloading and playing it at the
same time.
What's involved are these functions.
1. The server sends the file to my PC (as with any download).
2. WMP has a buffer to receive the file, and it plays it all the while.
It's adding at the end of the file, and playing from the beginning. You
need a download speed fast enough to add more to the file than is being
played. If not you get the buffering pauses.

A friend says what about when he streams from his iPad to his TV.
Well, that's exactly as above but with an addition. The iPad does just
the same. Additionally the iPad has a program resident that displays
everything also on his TV (his TV having a program that handles the
input from the iPad).

You can add frills to the above; eg. you can delete played content from
the download, which is what Netflix does. But I think the concept of
"streaming" is depicted.

To me "Streaming" is when the content is simply "spit out there" for
anyone to connect to and watch, all simultaneously listening to same
content at same time. Much like I assume radio stations on the internet
work like, most webcams etc. Specifically selecting and then downloading
some content from some computer somewhere to another computer somewhere
is not streaming but simply downloading. That's what Netflix and the
like do.

That's my distinction.

In some limited cases, such as certain sporting events for example, there
are 'live streams' that you can connect to, in which case everyone is
listening/viewing the same content at the same time. However, in most cases
streams are unicast. You request it and they send it only to you for
immediate consumption. Nothing is stored locally for later viewing. No one
is watching the same thing at the same time, unless by pure chance, and even
then it's two separate and unrelated streams.

Netflix and it's cousins don't allow downloading. Everything they do is
streaming. It would instantly kill their business model if they openly
allowed downloading.

--

Char Jackson