QuickTime Streaming

Streaming QuickTime Over RTP or HTTP

QuickTime 4 supports streaming over RTP and HTTP. The main advantages of streaming over RTP are:

RTP can be used for live transmission and multicast.
Real-time streaming allows the user to view long movies or continuous transmissions without having to store more than a few seconds of data locally.
Using RTP transmission under RTSP control, a user can skip to any point in a movie on a server without downloading the intervening material.
You can stream a single track over RTP, whereas HTTP streams only whole movies. RTP streams can be incorporated in a movie using streaming tracks . A streaming track is a track in a QuickTime movie that contains the URL of the streaming content.
A QuickTime movie that contains streaming tracks can also include non-streaming tracks whose media exist on the client's computer. This allows a live transmission, or data stored on the Internet, to be incorporated into a movie along with material stored on the client's hard drive or distributed over CD-ROM.
RTP uses UDP/IP protocol, which doesn't attempt to retransmit lost packets. This allows multicasts as well as live streams, both cases where retransmission would not be practical.

The main advantages of streaming over HTTP are:

HTTP uses TCP/IP protocol to ensure that all movie packets are delivered, retransmitting if necessary.
HTTP does not attempt to stream in real time. To stream in real time, the bandwidth of the network must be greater than the data rate of the movie. If there is not enough bandwidth to transmit the movie in real time, streaming by HTTP allows the client to store the data locally and play the movie after enough has arrived.
Most firewalls and network configuration schemes will pass HTTP without modification.
Any QuickTime movie can be streamed using HTTP. QuickTime 4 supports RTP streaming of video, audio, text, and MIDI. To stream a movie with other media types, such as sprites, you should use HTTP.