How much internet speed streaming actually needs
Most advice on this quotes numbers far above what the services themselves publish. Here are the official figures, and why the number you are told to check is not really the one that decides playback.
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Streaming Technology
Streaming replaced the schedule, but the plumbing underneath it is still broadcast engineering with different acronyms. This hub covers delivery protocols, video quality, platform behaviour and what changes when a service switches format.
Latest in Streaming
AV1, HEVC and why streaming services carry more than one codec
Two codecs do roughly the same job, and services publish in both. The reason is only partly technical — and which one reaches your screen is decided by the chip inside your device.
How streaming video actually reaches your TV
Pressing play starts a chain of steps that has almost nothing to do with the internet you use for everything else. Here is what each one does, and which of them is responsible when playback goes wrong.
Why live streams run behind broadcast television
Your neighbour cheers before you see the goal. The delay is not your connection — it is structural, and each part of it exists for a reason.
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WheelsTV, Azuki and the problem of getting video onto phones in 2008
In 2008 a niche video producer could not simply publish to phones — it needed a delivery platform. A look back at that arrangement, and at what happened to both halves of it.
What Streaming covers
The boundaries of this hub, so it stays a subject rather than a catch-all.
- Adaptive streaming formats, codecs and bitrate behaviour
- Live streaming, latency and event delivery
- How platforms differ technically, not which one to buy
- Video quality, HDR delivery and audio formats over the internet