�Streamloading  puts video buffering on hold New York University Posted by James Devitt-NYU on June 26 2013NYU (US)  �  A new type of streaming technology that fuses streaming and downloading kicks up video quality and dodges screen freezes in mobile devices.  It s the bane of streaming media �the endlessly spinning cursor on a dark screen or the final minutes of a favorite show freezing to a halt when the wireless signal weakens. The new technology called streamloading could make spotty streaming and data-hogging downloads a thing of the past.In the simplest terms streamloading makes use of a video format that splits the video into two layers �a base layer which contains a coarse representation of the video and an enhancement layer which completes the image quality and includes the fine-grain details.Traditional streaming involves downloading 30 to 60 seconds of video ahead of time with the video quality and speed varying depending on wireless signal strength. Streamloading allows users to pre-download the enhancement layer onto their devices in a location where wireless signal is strong �at home for example �and stream only the base layer at the time of viewing.Shivendra S. Panwar professor of electrical and computer engineering the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and the lead developer of streamloading estimates that the technique could remove as much as 75 percent of the streaming content from increasingly overloaded cellular wireless networks while at the same time reducing high data usage charges for consumers.Panwar explains that  �in the best-case scenario we ll at the same time relieve some of the bandwidth crunch for wireless carriers and significantly improve the speed and quality of streaming video making it easier and less expensive to access content this way. �Panwar along with a team of students who have been working on the prototype technology designed streamloading to be compatible with current digital rights management (DRM) protocols. Although users will technically be downloading and saving content on their devices �something that s prohibited by streaming content services like Netflix � Panwar explains that  �what s being stored is just one layer of content. It would be useless and impossible to watch without the base layer which is streamed at the time of viewing. �Panwar and his team plan to continue testing and refining the technology this summer and have already initiated conversations with wireless carriers.The National Science Foundation and the Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications (CATT) at NYU-Poly support the work.Source: New York UniversityYou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.