When you’re trying to stream a video, there’s nothing worse than getting a laggy, pixelated version of the original. This can happen because of where you are or that you are in motion, or the simple fact that you aren’t the only person trying to watch something online, and video streaming uses so much bandwidth that networks can become congested.
The thing is, people really love watching videos online. Right now, according to a recent report by Cisco, video streaming makes up around 63% of global Internet traffic—and is expected to be just under 80% by 2018—so you might agree that it’s important to find smart streaming technology that can provide everyone with a good video experience.
DASH—Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP—provides a superior solution, and we’ve built it into the latest generation of Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors, because every year more and more people stream content like YouTube videos, movies and TV shows on their mobile devices. The vivid image quality of 4K Ultra HD video is closer to richness and depth seen in real life, but increases bandwidth needs. Many of the flagship smartphones expected to be released in 2015 will be able to support 4K Ultra HD video content, and DASH is up to the task.
Until recently, if you wanted to watch videos on your device, your best option was to download it to your device. Of course, that’s not really streaming, and it’s definitely not a time-efficient way to get huge HD or Ultra HD video files. Instead, with DASH, streaming videos are cut into small segments and sent from the server as the device can accommodate them. And with DASH, the device not only lets the server know when it can take another segment, but at what video quality, depending on network conditions. That way, the video can stream lag-free and differences in video quality only last a few seconds.
4K Ultra HD video is the highest quality video to date, and dynamic adaptation to rapidly changing network conditions is the key to having an uninterrupted streaming experience. That means you can still stream high-quality video on mobile minimizing persistent buffering, even with varying network conditions. DASH on Snapdragon processors is one more way that mobile is driving the 4K Ultra HD revolution.
