Is downloading and streaming the same thing

For the areas where the internet speed is not very good, the downloading is preferred over online streaming. Your email address will not be published. However, both processes download the content prior to watching it, in streaming we call it buffering. Streaming of content requires a steady internet speed while this is not necessary while we are downloading it. In the case of videos, the screen resolution depends on the internet speed while streaming it. In contrast, if the video is downloaded, its screen resolution does not depend on the internet speed.

Streaming the content could introduce buffering. Conversely, buffering is not present when we are downloading some content. To download multimedia content, we must have the required amount of storage which is not needed in case of streaming the same item.

The time required to play the particular audio or video content with streaming is much less as compared to the time required to download it and then play it. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Table of Contents. Improve Article. Save Article. Like Article. Last Updated : 21 May, Streaming and downloading, both the terms are mostly used when we use the internet.

Streaming: Streaming refers to the viewing of the content hold on within the remote machine server instead of the shopper machine. Now, however will this streaming works? So, this can be however the transmitter systematically sends the packets of multimedia system knowledge whereas the receiver accepts, decodes and examine the received parts of the bitstreams concomitantly.

It are often explained by taking the instance of the FTP protocol, within which the file is downloaded first before overwhelming it. The European Court of Justice ruled in late April that it is effectively illegal to sell a media player device that has been configured for easy access to illicit streaming sites.

These devices, used in parallel with a host of streaming sites, have been the latest hot thing in online piracy, enabling people to stream content directly to their TVs. The court case directly hit the Dutch Filmspeler. They believed Filmspeler was clearly profiting on the deal and they knew the links would be used for copyright infringements.

Included in this decision, the Court decided that the temporary reproduction of a copyright-protected work such as by streaming , without the OK of the copyright holder, is not acceptable. This essentially threw out the previous distinction between downloading — where the end user actually has the files on their device — and streaming — where the files are just saved momentarily in a memory cache.

The equation of downloading with streaming is a common sense move, but it leaves many questions unanswered in terms of end-user liabilities. After all, if a person can currently get fined in Germany or taken to court in many countries for using torrents to download copyright protected material — why should they not be fined for watching the same material on a streaming site? And what about enforcement.

Barb Gonzalez is a former freelance contributor to Lifewire and the Simple Tech Guru, an advocate for simple, understandable technology. Tweet Share Email. It's important to stream content only from reputable companies that are safe and legal. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Email Address Sign up There was an error.

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