Streaming media in the fast lane
 
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Streaming media in the fast lane
Streaming media is more than just listening to music, watching a movie trailer or funky animation. It's also an underlying set of technologies that can help your company communicate more effectively, more consistently and more conveniently with employees, partners, resellers, prospects and customers.
Interactive database
See which provider/manufacturer would best suite your needs. Our interactive database includes 14 vendors.
Sample RFP - Live Events
Download the RFP used by Christine Perey for the live event testing. Requires Adobe Acrobat.
Sample RFP - On-Demand Events
Download the RFP used by Christine Perey for the on-demand event testing. Requires Adobe Acrobat.
Pricing worksheet
Handy form for figuring out the itemized pricing of each type of service offered by a streaming media provider. Requires Adobe Acrobat.
Test Plan
Read the plan used for testing the streaming media service providers profiled in this review. Requires Adobe Acrobat.
What about Akamai?
Network World and Keynote Systems stand behind the methodology used, but we decided to honor Akamai's request to not be included in the study summary or Scorecard. However, we also decided to share with readers what we did learn about Akamai's service prior to its decision to withdraw.
Race ground rules
From a starting list of more than 60 companies that offered special services for developing, hosting and delivering streaming media in one form or another, we narrowed the list down to 25 companies that could offer application assistance as well as network transport and special content management options in their service packages.
More Ground Rules
Further requirements of streaming media participants.
View it yourself
See the actual files and Web site used for testing the various service providers.
Run your own test
For those readers wanting to test their own providers, download the files we used in the test. The Microsoft and Real package each contain three files set for different streaming rates: 40K bit/sec, 100K bit/sec and 300K bit/sec. The files have been Zipped for easier download:
Windows Media Zip file 7 megabyte file
Real Media Zip file 8.8 megabyte file
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