QuickTime for the Web: For Windows and Macintosh, Second Edition
A comprehensive explanation of QuickTime for every multimedia author.
TABLE OF CONTENTS QuickTime for the Web: For Windows and Macintosh, Second Edition
Chapter 14: Gently down the Stream
Overview
So far, we've looked at movies with digital sound, MIDI music, still images, motion video, and text. By a happy coincidence, movies made with all these media types can be streamed in real time.
You already know how to deliver movies locally (put them on a disk) or as Fast Start movies (put them on a Web server and embed them in an HTML page). Now we'll look at delivering them as real-time streams. While we're on the subject, we'll show you how to set up a streaming server (it's easy) and how to stream a live broadcast (it's fun!).
Streaming movies are a bit more demanding than Fast Start movies, and some people may find the necessary steps a little daunting. In addition, while QuickTime is unrivaled as a way to create and deliver Fast Start movies, there is a serious three-way rivalry in streaming, with Windows Media, Real, or QuickTime each offering different advantages. If you want to offer more than just streaming (interactivity, for example, or virtual reality), QuickTime is far and away the best choice.
But if you're just streaming audio and video and want to reach the broadest possible audience with the least possible fuss, consider using a service such as Generic Media ( www.genericmedia.com/). You can create your movies using QuickTime, giving you access to the best tools, and let the service compress the movies for various bandwidths, hint them, and automatically stream them in Windows Media, Real, or QuickTime format (whichever...
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