A quote from Prince McLean

Unlike progressive downloads, HTTP Live Streaming actually does stream content in real time, although there can be a latency of as much as 30 seconds. [...] the content to be broadcast is encoded into an MPEG transport stream and chopped into segments that are around ten seconds long. Rather than getting a continuous stream of new data over RTSP, the new protocol simply asks for the first couple clips, then asks for additional clips as needed. This works great through firewalls, and doesn’t require any special servers because any standard web server can deliver the chopped up video segments.

— Prince McLean

Posted 9th July 2009 at 12:52 pm

1 comment

A less enthusiastic take from the comments:

It's an individually submitted draft with no status. Reception of this draft by the Audio/Video Transport workgroup has not been positive, with questions being asked about basic assumptions on that group's mailing list, along with proposals of better ways to accomplish the same thing. The draft was always intended as Informational document - not a standard - going directly to the RFC Editor, bypassing the working group and IETF as the authority. Read the heading of the draft and the initial boilerplate.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1446 473&postcount=20

And why wouldn't an open standard based on HTTP work with Theora, Vorbis or any other codec you could mention?

Dave - 9th July 2009 19:26 - #

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