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Video Preference: Steam or Download?
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:21 am
by Ollie Saunders
Feel free to explain your votes. Thanks for any contribution.

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:31 am
by JayBird
Streaming with a flash player
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:15 am
by vigge89
I prefer to stream them through a decent/good flash player if I'm only going to watch a video once.
Otherwise, I'll download and play it with Media Player Classic.
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:17 am
by John Cartwright
Depending on the flash player I will allow it to stream, but if the GUI if horrible (such as when you click on the movie it redirects you to an ad) I will simply opt to download it.
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:32 am
by VladSun
Streaming because I have broadband connection

At the same time, torrent files still need to be downloaded first
So ... it's hard to say which is preferable - the question is which is more suitable

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:10 pm
by Christopher
By streaming do you mean that the client begins play once its buffer is sufficiently full; or do you mean that the server sends data using a protocol that allows feedback and bandwidth control?
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 3:51 pm
by superdezign
Streaming feels like downloading to me because I have to wait for the whole thing (unless I want to watch it in split second chunks separated by 10 second breaks), yet I don't get to keep the video.
I just avoid online videos, period.

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:22 pm
by s.dot
If it's just a news clip or something, I'd prefer to stream it. But if it's something I want to see in good quality, downloading is the option.
So my vote is circumstancial.
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 6:34 pm
by Kieran Huggins
Streaming after a click, option to download in a standard format. Though this requires two encodes...
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:03 pm
by TheMoose
Kieran Huggins wrote:Streaming after a click, option to download in a standard format. Though this requires two encodes...
Not so much anymore. Adobe is adding in H264 decoding into Flash Player, so HD streams are going to be more common. Stage6 (DivX video site) does it already too (using DivX codec obviously).
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:00 am
by The Phoenix
Kieran Huggins wrote:Streaming after a click, option to download in a standard format. Though this requires two encodes...
Precisely how I prefer it. This way, if its small, I can just stream it. If its large, I can download it (and possibly shuttle it over to my iPhone). The 'after a click' part is critical, because I cannot stand opening 10-12 links for reading various sites in batch, and one of them starts playing obnoxious background music.
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:38 am
by Ollie Saunders
Thanks for all the brilliant feedback guys. Keep it coming.
arborint wrote:By streaming do you mean that the client begins play once its buffer is sufficiently full; or do you mean that the server sends data using a protocol that allows feedback and bandwidth control?
The former - HTTP streaming. Is true streaming a significant factor in your decision then?
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:01 pm
by Christopher
ole wrote:The former - HTTP streaming. Is true streaming a significant factor in your decision then?
Well then it depends solely on whether I want to save the video file to disk. If I don't want to save the video file then the solution with the quickest start time and the smoothest play would be my preference. If I want to save the file then I just want throughput.
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:38 am
by ReverendDexter
I prefer to download - with streaming, my connection is just fast enough that the content will buffer "enough", start to play, and catch up with itself. This puts it in stutter mode, which I find to be one of the most annoying things in the world. So, I have to pause it, wait for it to load at least most of the way, and then watch it. Meaning I could've just taken that time to download it, not had it eating up a browser window/tab, and watched it in the media player of my choice.
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 1:05 pm
by pickle
I'd rather download. I'd rather wait all at once before my movie starts, than have to wait at random intervals in the movie. Downloading generally gets you a higher quality video too, because the creators of the video aren't trying to optimize for all possible bandwidths.