A Brief History of Video Streaming

Collage showing Netflix and Prime Video logos on a TV screen

While Physical Media is (thankfully) still with us, the modern world has fully embraced streaming all forms of entertainment. Gaming, music, TV shows, and movies have multiple dedicated platforms offering a wealth of choice. Perhaps too much.

Streaming as we know it has only been with us a short time, but its evolution has been swift. From its humble origins to its near-instant global dominance, streaming has gone from a joke to a juggernaut.

In this article, I’ll discuss some of the key breakthroughs that led to streaming taking over in less than a decade. I’ll highlight the rise of Netflix/Amazon and how, in a bid to catch up, its rivals have caused industry-wide division and oversaturation. Plus, I’ll reveal what might be the single worst business decision ever made within the entertainment industry. There may even be time to ponder the future of video streaming.

Like all significant technological advancements, we must look back a couple of decades to find their origin. As much as I want to cover every technical advancement and the introduction of every streaming service, I’ll keep to the essentials.

Early Beginnings of Streaming

You might not be familiar with the rock band Severe Tire Damage, but on June 23, 1993, they secured their place in history. Admittedly, it was purely by chance rather than due to overwhelming popularity. 

The band was playing in the car parks of various companies working in new technologies and computers. One of those impromptu gigs was in the parking lot of research and development company Xerox PARC.

Quite by luck, the scientists there were developing a way to broadcast video over the internet, and they tried out their pioneering technology on the band. While the overall picture quality was poor, and buffering was a problem, the technology was now in the world.

The Rise of RealPlayer

This American-based tech upstart was only formed in 1994, but their first product (RealAudio Player) rapidly changed how we listen to music. However, they created one of their key innovations when they applied that technology to video. In 1997, RealVideo Player landed.

RealVideo Player allowed users to stream compressed video content over dial-up connections, which were the norm in the 1990s (more on that later). Despite slow internet speeds (and endless buffering), RealVideo made internet video accessible using compression techniques that worked even with limited bandwidth. That’s about the extent of my technical knowledge; if you had told me it was magic, I would have believed you.

RealNetworks’ RealPlayer quickly became the dominant media player for streaming content on early web platforms. It was revolutionary as it allowed real-time playback, helping set the stage for today’s video streaming services. True as that might be, there was still a missing piece of the puzzle: faster internet.

Broadband Was The Key

The World Wide Web might have been around when I was growing up, but it was dial-up internet. Essentially, you access the internet via your landline, and it’s painfully slow. As a bonus, it would make a series of digital beeps, screeches, and dings as it connects. Fun! The slow speeds presented limitations for streaming, and Broadband was the (eventual) answer.

Initially, broadband connections like DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and cable internet provided much higher data transfer speeds by using dedicated lines rather than sharing phone lines as dial-up did. By the 2000s, Broadband became widely available, revolutionizing internet usage with faster download and upload speeds. The possibilities quickly became endless, so let’s skip forward five years to December 15, 2005.

YouTube Goes Live

The invention of cable and satellite TV gave us access to PPV (Pay Per View) on-demand sports, movies, and…er, cuddle films, but the next big step forward arrived with a 19-second video at a zoo.

2005 didn’t just bring the end of the Star Wars prequel trilogy with Revenge of the Sith (2005); it’s when video sharing changed forever. YouTube went live, and the supply of neverending cat videos began. The user-generated content era was here, and half of my Media Degree was now rendered useless. People from all over the world could upload videos, build a following, and release web series.

It took barely a year before Google (seeing the long-term value) acquired YouTube for a reported $1.6 billion.

Netflix Begins

Initially, Netflix entered the entertainment game as a rival to Blockbuster Video by offering DVD rentals via the post. However, early on in Netflix’s story, they wanted to be partners with Blockbuster.

In 2000, Blockbuster rejected an offer from Netflix to buy 49% of their business for a very reasonable $50 million. Let that sink in for a second: Blockbuster could have owned nearly half of Netflix. If that deal had gone through, maybe Blockbuster wouldn’t have filed for bankruptcy a decade later in 2010.

I highlight this terrible business decision as Netflix has always been seen as a joke to the wider industry. A mere flash in the pan that wouldn’t last. So, in 2007, when they began streaming, nobody thought it was the beginning of a massive shift. Aside from movie studios having somewhere new to license their catalog, Netflix plodded on collecting US subscribers and learning viewing habits. It wasn’t all on Netflix’s shoulders; Hulu launched in the US soon after Netflix and followed a primarily similar path.

2010 was a big year as Netflix was going global, well, at least in Canada, but it was the start of the steady rollout.

Interactive Streaming Platforms

While this isn’t the article to get into the wealth of contributions from the gaming world to video streaming, it’s too significant not to mention.

One of the main factors that the gaming industry worked out was enabling a much smoother live stream and invocations in latency reduction. If, like me, your tech talk is not so good, that essentially means a more stable live stream with less buffering or lag. Gaming platforms like Twitch (also launched in 2011) and (to a lesser degree) YouTube Gaming developed vital technology that was swiftly adopted by streaming platforms.

Netflix 2.0

Catch-up services like BBC iPlayer and websites like the Cartoon Network led the new digital age. VOD was available through Sky, and audiences were getting used to watching what they wanted when they wanted. That was great news for Netflix, as their latest innovation would eventually shake the industry to its core.

Four years into its shift to streaming, Netflix grew tired of licensing other studios’ content. So, in 2011, it made a bold pivot and announced it was making original TV shows and movies of its own. Leading its fresh slate was a US remake of House of Cards, and once again, the industry pointed and laughed at Netflix. 

However, the uncontrollable laughter wouldn’t last as Netflix was no longer alone in throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at making originals.

Amazon Prime

Netflix already had skin in the entertainment game; the transition to producing content of its own is a natural progression. So, it stands to reason that a multi-billion dollar company that delivers things to your door throws its hat into the ring. However, Amazon tried a wildly different approach to making originals.

Netflix was giving out full series orders, but Amazon elected to do an annual pilot season. Each year, around 12 potential new shows had a pilot episode made, and audiences got to vote on which ones they’d like to go to a whole series. There were some successes like Transparent (2014), The Tick (2016), and Bosch (2014), but it was a mostly failed experiment that Amazon abandoned a couple of years later.

Plus Everything

Despite the overall industry looking confusedly at what Amazon and Netflix were doing, every studio wanted a streaming platform. After years of being the joke, Netflix was having the last laugh, albeit briefly. New streaming platforms were coming up fast, and billions of dollars were being spent to catch up.

Currently, more than 25 paid-for streaming platforms are available in the US, and we’ve seen some wonderful niche streamers pop up. AcornTV for all your cozy crime, Shudder for all things horror, MGM+ for TV shows and movies, and so much more. I’ll refrain from listing all the niche streamers, but here’s a list of the most popular ones, some of which have been rebranded more than once.

  • Netflix (2007)
  • Hulu (2008)
  • Amazon Prime Video (2011)
  • HBO Now / HBO Go (2015)
  • YouTube Red (YouTube Premium) (2015)
  • CBS All Access (2014, rebranded as Paramount+ in 2021)
  • Apple TV+ (2019)
  • Disney+ (2019)
  • Peacock (2020)
  • HBO Max (2020)
  • Paramount+ (2021, rebranded from CBS All Access)
  • Discovery+ (2021)
  • Max (2023, rebranded from HBO Max)

Content Division

When Disney finally launched its streaming platform in 2019, it wasn’t just the Star Wars/Marvel originals that got people’s attention. In a move Thanos would have found a tad harsh, Disney removed all its shows and movies from other platforms. The only way to watch the vast Disney catalog was with a Disney+ subscription. This was no warning shot to get better licensing deals; this was Disney gating everything to drive memberships.

The repercussions were immediate, and it didn’t take long before other streamers followed suit. In addition to keeping vast content catalogs to themselves, all streamers were ramping up their slate of originals.

The Streaming Wars

In previous entertainment-based conflicts, two things usually go head to head, and there is a clear-cut winner. In those format wars that saw VHS battle Betamax or Blu-ray lock horns with HD DVD, something won and lost. The situation is not as cut and dry with streaming; the big platforms are starting to see that throwing endless money to retain subscribers is a false economy.

To drive memberships, all the heavy hitters are offering cheaper ad-supported plans. Basically, streaming is returning to revenue streams used by network TV, and it’s not had the impact they hoped for. Far too many promising new TV shows get lost in the sheer quantity of stuff. It also doesn’t help that most streamers wait just six weeks after a show is released to determine its future.

The Streaming Wars show no signs of easing, but it’s the viewer that is losing out.

What’s in Store for the Future

The evolution of streaming continues; 4K as a standard is on the way, and there have been some wild innovations with virtual reality. There’s been some groundbreaking work on 5G Cloud-based streaming, which will speed up mobile streaming substantially.

Perhaps the most exciting/terrifying development will be content personalization. Ironically, an episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror (Joan is Awful) took the concept of tailor-made AI-powered content and turned it into nightmare fuel.

Are we ready for the algorithm to make TV shows and movies tailor-made for individuals? Far be it from me to upset our future AI overlords, but it’s a terrible way forward. When did just the movie or TV show stop being enough?

Wrapping Up

Regardless of what new technologies are on the horizon, one core thing remains the overall issue. There’s too much choice, too many platforms, and a quality standard desperately needing more consistency. Many streaming movies look like rough-cut test-screening versions, not the finished product.

As a lifelong geek, I never thought I would voice this complaint, let alone write it down. There’s too much to watch. The average Netflix user will spend 18-20 minutes selecting a new TV show, and a movie can be nearly double that at 35-40 minutes. In a given week, we are wasting hours deciding what to watch.

We’re very much in the downfall era of streaming now. Studios are tightening their belts; subscription prices are rising, and shows get canceled quickly. Streamers were once seen as disruptors to the industry, just over a decade in, and they are all enduring the same issues as network TV. Maybe in another 10 years, we will all be beaming, and content will beamed into our brains immediately. Until then, the Streaming Wars continue.

Picture of Chris Suffield
Chris Suffield
Chris is a writer, filmmaker, and editor with over 20 years of experience in independent film and the corporate sector. After completing a BA Hons in Media Production at University he formed Jellyfielder Studios, a boutique video production company. As a self-proclaimed uber-geek, Chris shares his love of all things TV and movies based on entertainment websites Box Office Buz and We Love Movies More Than You.
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