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An alternate approach to streaming video

[This is based on an 11Jan 2001 post to netnews.]

Streaming video as currently implemented (RealPlayer, Quicktime, etc) is a terrible waste of bandwidth-- you have to wait a long time for a sequential series of frames to load, and each new frame adds only a miniscule bit of new information to what you already had.

There's a very simple alternate approach possible, that takes into account how people actually get information from streaming images-- the first frame of each shot offers the most information, so a clear 30k version of that first frame will communicate much, much more than a 30k sequence of smaller (eg 8k) frames that 'animate'.

So instead of loading frames in sequential order, the approach I'm proposing would load frames according to how much new information they add, with the user controlling how many frames of each sequence they want to see.

(RealVideo already negotiates the frame-rate based on the speed of the Net that it detects at any moment... but not the frame sequence, and it's not under user-control.)

How it could work:

• most of the bandwidth goes to downloading a series of large, clear images (eg jpegs, under 30k each)
• ideally, the next image will load invisibly while the current one displays
• these images shouldn't all have to be the same size
• the user should have controls for 'pause' and 'back' (currently this means an HTML page to accompany each image, but see the Kangas-idea below)
• ideally, there should be accompanying HTML text as a caption, with a link to 'more detail' (eg for adding 'streaming' to Yahoo's current popular-news-images feature-- see below for link)
• there needs to be a way for users to resume the 'image stream' where they left off, after reading the detail-page
• there may also be a link to a larger version of the image, or an animated version ('animations' includes photographic video too, not just cartoons)
• animations are built up out of images that are loaded out of sequence: first frame, then last frame, then middle frame, etc
• while later frames load, the images cached-so-far are cycled on screen
• users can reverse the cycling (so frames display in reverse order)
• users can go back to the regular image-stream anytime they've seen enough of the animation (users with slow connections will settle for fewer frames, but will still get the gist of the full sequence)
• the stream-author can break down a long animation into short individual scenes, or longer series of scenes (the only difference being how much fine-control the user has)
• ideally the stream author should be able include any URL in the sequence-- full HTML pages, not just images-- so it gives a tour of others' pages (cf weblogs)

Aspects of this can be easily simulated in Javascript, but should really be a basic server capability:

Javascript image-streaming example (contains nudity): Page3.com

Yahoo's popular pix would be ideal for this treatment

An experiment using frames (no Javascript): RW pixlog (this approach might allow weblog-style comments to be added to a 'streaming tour' of other pages)

Steve Kangas has come up with an (untested) Javascript trick using a list of URLs in a single HTML page, where only the query-string changes when you hit 'next' (eg: "pixpage.html?pic=11")

You can submit a new URL or any other suggestion for this page by typing it into the box below. It will instantly become visible to anyone at this comments page. I should get around to checking it out and updating it above within a week or three, at which point I'll delete it from the comments page.

If you want credit, include your name and email (otherwise it's anonymous). You can use HTML but you don't have to.

Special topics:
surfing-skills : url-hacking : open content : semantics : pagelength : linktext : startpages : bookmarklets : weblogging : colors : autobiographical pages : thumbnail-graphics : web-video : timeline of hypertext

Anti-XML/W3C/etc:
structure-myth : page-parsing : firstcut-parser : html-history : semantic web

Design prototypes:
topical portal : dense-content faq : annotated lit : random-access lit-summary : poetry sampler : gossipy history : author-resources : hyperlinked-timeline : horizontal-timeslice : web-dossier

Website-resource pages:
RobotWisdom.com : Altavista.com : 1911encyclopedia.com : Google.com : IMDb.com : Perseus.org : Salon.com : Yahoo.com

Older stuff:
design-lab : design-checklist : HyperTerrorist : design-theory : design cog-sci

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