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THEBIGTHREESTREAMINGTECHNOLOGIES 563to gravitate toward sites that provide clips on sporting
events. For example, the on-air rating of the JFK Jr.
tragedy was only 1.4, while over 2.3 million streams were
delivered from the CNN.com Web site (Tanaka, 2000).
The use of streaming video in the education and train-
ing areas has been rapidly growing for the last few years.
Universities and colleges, in particular, have been explor-
ing the use of streaming video for their distance learn-
ing programs. Distance learning has become popular be-
cause many people who have been in the work force for
a few years are returning to school to obtain an advanced
degree, pursue a career change, or upgrade their skills.
Many opt for distance learning programs because of their
work or travel schedules, or because the academic pro-
grams they desire are not available locally. Because of the
growth of distance learning programs, many colleges and
universities have started to use streaming video as an al-
ternative to mailing out VCR tapes, which can be cum-
bersome. With streaming video, these institutions can ex-
pand their distance learning programs to meet the needs
of their students. In addition, there are many Web sites
that offer training and tutorial programs on a variety of
subjects.
A common presentation method used by educators is a
lecture that includes static slides. These is must easier to
create and will provide good quality sound and images for
those students who have modem connections. There are
a number of software tools that can be used to combine
PowerPoint slides with narrations to create streaming pre-
sentations.
In view of the above discussion, it should also be
pointed out that streaming video is used for teaching ma-
terial that involves motion or dynamic interaction. Some
examples of this include medical or laboratory proce-
dures, processes in the physical sciences, interpersonal
skills, and illustrations of real world events or activities
(DoIt & WISC, 2002). In addition, live training or teaching
webcasts are produced using audio, slides, or video. The
participants access the Web site from their computers. In-
teraction between the instructor and participants occurs
in real time. The participants can use a chat window to
type in questions to the presenter during the session (DoIt
& WISC, 2002). These events are very challenging to coor-
dinate and deliver and are not as common as illustrated
audio presentations.
Businesses and companies are starting to use stream-
ing videos for advertising and communications. Some
businesses have started to webcast their products in order
to improve their sales. One of the most talked about events
was the Victoria’s Secret fashion show that was web-
cast in February, 1999 (Tanaka, 2000).
Another form of advertising that has become increas-
ingly popular is the video banner ad (Tanaka, 2000). This
technology involves using a program that detects whether
or not the client PC has a streaming media player, and
then determines the type if there is one present. This is
done before the user clicks on the Web page. Once the
user clicks on the Web page, video is played using the me-
dia player on the PC. If there is no media player on the
PC, then a regular GIF banner is displayed.
Businesses are also using streaming media to broad-
cast presentations, corporate meetings, and in-houseseminars to their employees. Many companies are finding
that this is less expensive than live meetings and seminars,
where travel expenses are incurred. And it offers oppor-
tunities for communication that would not otherwise be
available. For example, a company that uses streaming
technology may choose to broadcast an industry analysts’
meeting or public relations event that, without this tech-
nology, would not be feasible to do.THE BIG THREE STREAMING
TECHNOLOGIES
As mentioned previously in this chapter, there are three
major technologies for streaming video: RealOne, Quick-
Time, and Windows Media. These three players provide
all of the tools needed for streaming video, including ap-
plications for creating, editing, compression, encoding,
serving, and playing. Of these three, RealOne is the old-
est and still the most widely used (Sauer, 2001). RealOne
claims that they have over 70% of the Internet stream mar-
ket with their player being installed in over 90% of home
PCs (Cunningham & Francis, 2001). The RealOne technol-
ogy supports over 40 media formats and employs the lat-
est generation of encoding and compression techniques.
They have also developed a technology, calledSurestream,
that utilizes an automatic bit-rate technology to adjust the
data stream rate to the bandwidth characteristics of the
user (Cunningham & Francis, 2001).
RealOne has developed some strategic partnerships
that may give it a competitive advantage for the near
future. First, RealOne now supports Apple’s QuickTime
technology. And it is working with the National Basket-
ball Association and the Major Baseball League on a pay-
per-view model (Cunningham & Francis, 2001). However,
only the basic player and server versions are free; the more
advanced server and productions tools available from
RealOne can cost up to several thousand dollars. Stream-
ing is ReadMedia’s core business and they must charge
fees for the use of their applications, whereas their
competitors can incorporate their streaming technology
into other products they sell, such as operating systems
(Cunningham and Francis, 2001).
Also, RealOne is SMIL compliant. SMIL stands for syn-
chronized multimedia integration language and it pro-
vides a time-based synchronized environment to stream
audio, video, text, images, and animation (Strom, 2001).
SMIL is a relatively new language available to streaming
users. It is the officially recognized standard of the World
Wide Web Consortium (Strom, 2001). SMIL has attracted
a lot of attention because of the features and flexibility it
offers to users.
QuickTime was developed by Apple in 1991 and it is
one of the oldest formats for videos that are downloaded.
It is the one of the recent entrants into the streaming
video market (Sauer, 2001). One of the advantages that
QuickTime offers is that it can support different com-
pression techniques, including those used by RealOne,
as noted above. QuickTime also features an open plug-in
function that will allow the utilization of outside compres-
sion techniques (Cunningham & Francis, 2001). It is also
SMIL compliant (as noted above for RealOne). Quicktime
is available in the Apple MAC operating system. But it