Streaming is where on-demand and live delivery converge, and where the two are most often assumed to work the same way. They do not. On-demand can pause while it downloads; live cannot, because the data either arrived or it did not. Every design decision in this area follows from that difference.
This section covers the delivery pipeline. The protocol and format detail lives in the technology section, so the two do not repeat each other.
Adaptive delivery
Adaptive bitrateMeasuring what the connection can currently sustain and choosing accordingly, and why it oscillates.
SegmentationWhy delivery is broken into small pieces, and what that buys and costs.
Live versus on-demandThe same pipeline serving two fundamentally different problems.In preparation
Quality
Bitrate and resolutionThe trade between the two, and why neither alone predicts perceived quality.
Video and audio codecsWhat each codec is for, and why devices refuse codecs they cannot decode in hardware.
Buffering as a symptomWhy buffering is a network observation, not a player setting.
Delivery infrastructure
Content delivery networksWhat a CDN actually does for a stream, and the cases where it cannot help.In preparation
Latency budgetsWhere the delay goes in a live path, and which parts are fixable by the viewer.In preparation
Delivery architecturesCentralised, hybrid and cloud-native, compared.In preparation
This page deliberately does not restate protocol explanations. Where a topic is covered in the technology section, the card points there instead.