Question

IT344- Database Management Systems
book Fundamentals Of Database Systems

please no copy and paste
Use your own words ,
No handwriting.
Users prefer to stream high quality videos (e.g., watch YouTube) without lagging (i.e., slow loading). In this context, explain how UDP is better than TCP when streaming videos?

Answer 1

UDP is a connectionless protocol and is preferred over TCP when your goal is to provide as up-to-date information as you can. Because it's a connectionless protocol, it won't buffer even if some packets get lost. It'll continue the live stream, with a reduced quality. If the videos are of very high quality, that is they have very high packets for every frame, you can afford to lose a few, because all that would do is lower the amount of detail.

• 720p uses 0.9GB/hr
• 1080p uses 1.5GB/hr
• 480p uses 0.7GB/hr

So, losing packets worth 100 mB of data won't affect 1080p, because it's going to be still closer to 720p - you'd miss only on some details whereas losing 100mB worth of data while playing 480p will mean that you might lose on something important- maybe an entire clip of a few seconds.

In case of TCP, you'll have to wait for video to buffer as TCP will not play the stream untill it makes up for the lost packets.

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