Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Pseudostreaming

Some media formats are designed to begin playing before they’ve completely downloaded, producing a streaming effect even when the files are served from an HTTP server. This is known as pseudostreaming or HTTP-streaming .

The advantage to pseudostreaming is that it requires no special (and costly) server software. You just put the files on your server as you would a GIF or JPEG. This is a good solution for broadcasting relatively short audio tracks to just a few simultaneous listeners.

There are a number of key limitations to serving streaming media from a web server. It cannot handle heavy server loads and multiple simultaneous connections. You also sacrifice the advanced administration tools and bandwidth negotiation (users have to choose the appropriate file for themselves). This method also makes it impossible to do live broadcasts since the whole file needs to be available for download.

With the proper player on the user’s end, Windows Media, RealMedia, QuickTime, MP3, and Flash files will pseudostream from an HTTP server.

Warning

There are legal copyright differences between streaming and pseudostreaming formats. The issue involves whether the media becomes “affixed” to your hard drive or not. In this sense, the download and pseudostreaming methods are seen as giving away a recording of the audio, while streaming is seen more like broadcast and is subject to different copyright terms.