Videos are typically watched on the web in one of two ways.<\/p>\n
First is progressive download<\/strong>.\u00a0 This is how the vast majority of web videos are viewed (including YouTube).\u00a0 With progressive download, the video is simultaneously downloaded to the viewer’s computer as they watch it.\u00a0 The drawbacks are this can lead to buffering messages (if enough video hasn’t been downloaded so someone can watch it, the video buffers while more is downloaded) and security issues (since the video is being downloaded to a viewer’s computer, they will have a copy of it).\u00a0 Progressive download videos can be hosted from virtually any web server or web host.<\/p>\n Second is true streaming<\/strong>.\u00a0 With true steaming, a viewer’s computer only downloads the portion of the video that is being displayed and then discards it.\u00a0 For example, a viewer can start watching a video and then jump around to the middle or the end of the video…instantly.\u00a0 There will be no buffering issues and since the entire video is never downloaded (or kept), there are generally far fewer security issues too.\u00a0 In addition, the delivery of the video can automatically be adjusted to match the viewer’s download speed.\u00a0 However, delivering videos via true streaming…up until now…has been very expensive and complex.\u00a0 You needed special software and servers to do it.<\/p>\n That has just changed thanks to Amazon.\u00a0 Amazon has long offered a service called S3<\/strong>, where you could rent storage and bandwidth on their servers at a very low cost (great for delivering videos…via progressive download).<\/p>\n About a year ago, they introduced an additional service called CloudFront<\/strong>.\u00a0 CloudFront uses edge servers, which deliver the videos from your S3 account using servers closest to the viewer’s geographical location (this means faster video delivery).<\/p>\n And today they announced that CloudFront now offers true streaming of videos as well.\u00a0 In other words, Amazon has integrated the “expensive and complex true streaming software” directly into their CloudFront services.\u00a0 Except you don’t need to know how to configure, manage or\u00a0 use this software.\u00a0 It’s just automatically there and works.\u00a0 And it doesn’t cost you anything extra…if you want to deliver your videos via progressive download or true streaming…the cost is the same.<\/p>\n