Any difference between video encoding for progressive download and streaming?

Question

I want to know if we can use the same file for both video streaming and for progressive download. Is there any differences between their encoding?

For example, If I have a .flv file, can I use the same file for any of the above delivering methods, without doing any further manipulation?

Can anyone suggest any tutorial or article that describe how to implement progressive download?

Corroboree

Thanks for your wonderful Edit Mr Flavius – Corroboree

Answer 1

Flash videos works pretty well for both streaming and progressive download; it has a metadata header before the video frames (containing dimension, length, etc.), so using progressive download it will play almost instantly without making any modifications (unlike h.264 which requires moving the header after encoding).

Streaming Flash videos typically requires an flv streaming module on your web server. Such a module would seek into the video file to the nearest jump position, construct the metadata block dynamically and continue to server video frames.

Streaming h.264 videos is also possible using mod_h264 for Apache, but support for other web servers shouldn't be hard to find.

Accentor

Thank You Jack. But in our project we need to support different mobile devices and computers ,So do I can implement progressive download, I think it not need any streaming servers so it will affect the project budget too – Corroboree

@RenjithKN No doubt, streaming servers are pretty expensive; however, especially with mobile devices you'll be looking at encoding into several video sizes :) – Dint

Can I move forward with progressive download, Which one is better,I have a plan to detect device and convert the file into supported format and deliver it using any of the above method.If we use streaming server do it perform all these process automatically I mean device detection and giving supported format – Corroboree

@RenjithKN Unfortunately I'm not very well versed in commercial streaming solution, whether those do on-the-fly compression for mobile devices, etc. If they do, it's extremely likely you will have to pay for that convenience :) – Dint