New Streaming Media Hosting Service – I thought I had it March 13, 2003 Peter M. Abraham Last month, we announced a new streaming media service available as a separate product or add on (your choice) to your hosting services. You can find out more about the service by going to this page in your browser: http://www.dynamicnet.net/services/streamingmedia.htm. We’ve had our hosting customers contact us asking if they are not already receiving the service, and I thought I would write this article to help clear up some confusion about the issue. For years we have been providing our hosting clients with HTTP streaming of real audio and real video for all of the major formats. That has always been included in all of our hosting plans. HTTP streaming is an alternative approach to serving Audio and Video files on the Web without the added management requirements and expense of server-side streaming software. Although this technique is not well-suited for high-volume sites serving numerous simultaneous streams, many smaller Web sites can benefit tremendously from this simple and inexpensive approach. Actually, it's better than inexpensive, it's free. There are some important differences however, between the capabilities of HTTP and specialized server software such as RealNetworks' Helix Server, Apple QuickTime Server, etc. For example, you can't automatically detect the user's modem speed using HTTP. Instead, files optimized for each of the various connection speeds must be made available for users to select themselves. HTTP-based approach does not allow for live streaming audio or video presentations because complete files must be stored on the Web server before they can be accessed. HTTP does not make efficient use of server resources, and as a result doesn't perform well under heavy server loads. Lastly, HTTP streaming requires the entire audio / video file to be downloaded prior to being played. So if you have a 5-minute video presentation, the entire file has to be download, then it will start playing. Utilizing specialized streaming media server software allows for the audio / video file to be played after only downloading a small portion of the file while “steaming” the rest of the file during the rest of the play time. Our new service is geared towards the growing demands of our clients to be able to provide their consumers with audio and video presentations taking advantage of growing broad band (high speed) Internet connections. Please contact our Marketing and Business development department to learn more about this exciting new service; please feel free to ask for a two week free trial.