QuickTime Streaming extends the QuickTime software architecture to support the creation, transmission, and reception of multimedia streams. This allows QuickTime programmers to create applications that receive multimedia in real time, and to create authoring and editing tools that work with streaming content. Existing applications that play QuickTime movies can play real-time streaming movies with little or no code change.
Streaming involves sending movies from a server to a client over a network such as the Internet. The server breaks the movie into packets that can be sent over the network. At the receiving end, the packets are reassembled by the client and the movie is played as it comes in. A series of related packets is called a stream.
Streaming is different from simple file transfer, in that the client plays the movie as it comes in over the network, rather than waiting for the entire movie to download before it can be played. In fact, a streaming client may never actually download a streaming movie; it may simply play the movie's packets as they come in, then discard them.
QuickTime movies can be streamed using a variety of protocols, including
- HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol)
- FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
and, new in QuickTime 4
- RTP (Realtime Transport Protocol).