Friday, 10 January 2014

What is Streaming Video



Streaming Video online is a growing trend among tech savvy organizations.
Streaming video has many benefits that include:
* Improved Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
* Increased time on site
* Deeper emotional connection
These are just a few benefits driving this trend. The fear of being left behind can be an equally strong motivator. One thing is for sure, as bandwidth costs fall and internet connectivity improves, streaming media penetration will accelerate in the near future.
So what exactly is "streaming video"? Well first of all it is important to note that "streaming video" generally falls into a two categories: "Video On Demand" and "Live Video Streaming".
* "Video-On-Demand" (VOD) is the most widespread form of streaming video today. It is video that progressively downloads (buffers) as you watch pre-recorded content that has been uploaded and hosted on a specialized video server.
* Live Video Streaming (Webcasting) is a real-time streaming video. Webcasting is often used for timely news, events, and online education. Live streaming video [http://www.cheapassbandwidth.com] is used by many tech savvy companies and advanced bloggers looking to bring something unique and personal to their site.
Now that we understand streaming video. Let's talk about how to incorporate streaming video into your website.
There are 3 main ways to incorporate streaming video into your site:
1) Use Embedded video from video platforms such as . If you don't mind advertisements interrupting your video content, then uploading and embedding streaming video from a site like youtube should be fine.
2) Host your own content. You can use your web host to upload 1-2 videos to your site. This is not actually streaming video, but it is a simple way to get videos on your website. This is fine if you do not have many videos you want to share, and your traffic sizes are small to moderate. However, if you have high traffic volumes and want to incorporate a video rich site, refer to option 3.
3) Use dedicated Many professional blogs, vlogs, companies, and organizations prefer to host their own content. They do this by hosting the content on specialized video servers / video hosting servers (like the ones at used at cheapassbandwidth.com) to:
1. Own & control their video content
2. Brand videos
3. No Commercials
Incorporate Video Player into Website:
Next, you need to embed your video into your site, which can be done using code that you copy from youtube.com or vimeo. If you go with options 2 & 3, you need to use a white label video player such as LongTail Video. If you use WordPress, there are also many nice plug-ins that easily allow you to incorporate video into your site without any knowledge of coding.