However applications are more powerful in that they can manage the downloading of content far better & these programs can usually be watched offline for 30 days after downloading.
Website vs applications
The main problem with on demand video services that are applications on desktop computers is getting users to download them & register. It is far not as hard for a user to basically log onto a webpage without registering than to must spend time registering & downloading often large programs.
[edit] Stream quality
Stream quality refers to the quality of the picture & audio transferred from the servers of the distributor to the home screen on a user.
Higher quality video such as video in high definition (720p+) requires higher bandwidth & faster connection speeds. The general accepted kbps download rate needed to stream high definition video that has been encoded with H.264 is 3500, where as standard definition TV can range from 500 to 1500 kbps depending on the resolution on screen.
For users which do not have the bandwidth to stream HD video or even high SD video which requires 1500kbps iPlayer offers lower bitrate streams which in turn leads to lower video quality. This makes use of an adaptive bitrate stream so that if the users bandwidth suddenly drops, iPlayer will lower it is streaming rate to compensate for this.
In the UK BBC iPlayer deals with the largest amount of traffic yet it offers HD content along with SD content. As more people get web connections which can deal with streaming HD video over the net iPlayer has tried to keep up with demand & pace. However, as streaming HD video takes around 1.5gb of information per hour of video it took a lot of investment by the BBC to implement this on such a large scale.
This diagnostic tool offered on the BBC iPlayer site measures a user’s streaming capabilities & bandwidth for free.
Although competitors in the UK such as 4od, ITV Player & Demand Two have not yet offered HD streaming, the technology to support it is new & widespread HD streaming is not an impossibility. The availability of Channel 4 & Two programs on YouTube is predicted to prove amazingly popular as series such as Skins, Green Wing, The X Factor & others become available in a simple, straightforward format on a web-site which already attracts millions of people every day.
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