The Digital Fact Book - Quantel

Streaming (video and/or audio)Refers to supplying a constant service, often realtime, of a medium. Although broadcastTV has done this from the beginning and SDI streams data, the term is one more usuallyassociated with delivery by networks, including the Internet. The transmission comprisesa stream of data packets which can be viewed/heard as they arrive though are oftenbuffered, stored slightly in advance of viewing, to compensate for any short interruptionsof delivery. For the Internet, media is usually highly compressed to offer acceptable resultswith 28 kb/s for audio and upwards of 64 kb/s for video. There are three predominant videostreaming solutions: RealNetworks with RealVideo, RealAudio and RealPlayer, MicrosoftWindows Media and Apple Quicktime – each with their particular advantages. As Internettransfers are not deterministic, pictures and sound may not always be constantly delivered.See also: File transfer, IsochronousStructured Query Language (SQL)A popularlanguage forcomputerdatabase management. It is very widely used in client/servernetworks for PCs to access central databases and can be used with a variety of databasemanagement packages. It is data-independent and device-independent so users are notconcerned with how the data is accessed. As increasing volumes of stored media contentare accessible over networks, SQL is able to play a vital role in finding any required items.S163