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?

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.