NOTES ABOUT STREAMING VIDEO

Low - 56Kb Dial Up Modems
Presenting streaming video from our video servers, over the Internet, through your 56Kb modem and onto your computer screen, is difficult to achieve good looking video. We are using PlayStream, one of the best companies to host streaming video, and we have prepared the videos with the same software, procedures and settings as recommended by streaming video industry experts. Even with all this, when viewing our videos coming through a 56Kb modem they can be blurry and require re-buffering. These are all issues out of our control. Considering that not all 56Kb modems connect at the same speed, we have engineered the video to be slightly below the bandwidth of a 56Kb modem, which somewhat degrades the picture quality. Compounding the problem is that the audio tracks are less bandwidth than video tracks and because of the narrow bandwidth of a 56Kb modem it will let the thin audio go through easier than the fat video, which can cause the Media Player to "re-buffer" to keep the audio and video in sync, also causing blurring. The technology of a 56Kb modem is still basically the same as was the original PC modem in 1977, which was never intended to stream synched audio and video over the Internet.

High - 256Kb or Faster Modems, DSL, ISDN or Business Networks
Our streaming videos work great with higher speed modems and networks such as ADSL, DSL, cable, LAN and T1. You will find that you can even go full screen with our streaming videos using higher speed Internet connections. Our videos at higher speeds should run without rebuffering in most cases and the picture quality will be good to excellent depending upon Internet traffic loads.

Windows Media Player
We choose Windows Media Player because approximately 75% of Internet Users and Internet Service Providers now prefer the Media Player and Media Servers over Real Player systems. Additionally, we find that our file sizes are smaller and we get a slightly better looking video at 56Kb.