Streaming media player proves to be a saviour for the Internet users for video and audio

The word streaming means listening to music or watching video in real time scenario, instead of downloading a file to your computer and watching it later. Here, the video or audio content is sent in compressed form over the Internet and then played immediately, rather than being saved to the hard drive and played later. With the help of a streaming media, a user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. As the media is being sent in a continuous stream of data it can play as and when it arrives.

A streaming media player connects the television set or home theatre to the Internet and allows to stream video and music from online services. These are some basic devices with few connections, for video, audio and the Ethernet networking jacks.

During early days of streaming media watching videos and listening to music online wasn't always fun. There was always some disturbance or the other, like the traffic or the buffering. Moreover, a slow computer or a dial-up-connection for internet would just make things worse for the user. On top of that, everything was choppy, with broken pixels and hard to see.

The Streaming video and audio have been a great saviour from these issues. Today, when there are millions of people listening to online radio, buffering can be completely avoided with proper streamlining. People, who miss their favourite television shows, can watch them smoothly over the internet later, without any buffering.­

­The success story of streaming media is not very old, but the idea behind it has definitely been since people had thought of having a smooth video or audio. Just as information travels from one person to another as sound waves, while they speak, similarly, the ears and brain decode the information, allowing the listener to understand it while listening to audio or watching the TV. The information travels to an electronic device in the form of a cable signal or a satellite signal or radio waves. The device then decodes and displays the signal. In streaming media the travelling information is a stream of data from a server and the decoder is a plug-in as a part of a Web browser. People desiring to have a high quality picture or audio can use the HD streaming media equipments for the purpose. A dongle which can be attached to the TV laptop or the mobile phone can do the wonder.

Of many devices aiding in streamlining the media, the Sterling TV Box is quite widely used. It is a small player that broadcasts almost 1600 channels and there is no hassle for paying any monthly fees, subscriptions or dues. Users can watch all the latest movies, sports, news, music videos and TV shows including the live shows on their television sets.