Is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb "to stream" refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner; the term relates to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself, and is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. A client end-user can use their media player to begin to play the data file (such as a digital file of a movie or song) before the entire file has been transmitted.
See also: Streaming Media.
This term is used in software engineering, programming, scripting, testing, application architecture, and development lifecycle work. It helps teams describe how software is designed, implemented, integrated, and maintained.