Software, driver and virus updates are vital to prolong a computer's life expectancy and are not very commonly downloaded over the internet. Many of these can be downloaded in the background, whilst the user uses the computer regularly sand only requires the user to restart their computer for these updates to be active. Often using a dialogue box to prompt and confirm the user whether they want the update, software can easily be added to the computer which can improve its usage and its life expectancy, meaning it can be used for longer. It could be said all software could be delivered in this way, not just updates but however some limitations such as the size of the software, often being quite large, takes several minutes to download and the fact that the user may want a physical copy of the software and manual for future reference. There may also be system failures and the software will need to be reinstalled, which can be a problem for bigger software, instead of small upgrades which wouldn't cause a problem. However downloading software upgrades being downloaded in this way has huge benefits as updates can be applied immediately and often automatically, also being free as the cost of providing them is very low. The fact the updates are so quick and fix problems very quickly, are also huge pluses. There are three main areas of media that are downloaded now in the modern world: music and videos.
Music downloading first caught on hugely after the introduction of the Apple company with
iTunes where high quality MPEG-4 audio coding is used for the tracks which gives them good compression and a good quality. Companies such as Sony use an ATRAC format which has better compression, however both these formats can be easily converted to MP3. Before iTunes, music downloading was relatively easy too using the MP3 format; it was carried out many by peer-2-peer file sharing services which allowed people to easily share and exchange music tracks with rarely any cost at all, however this is now considered illegal, which lead to companies like Apple who give a legal service of actually buying the tracks, then downloading them for a small cost of 79p a song and £8.99 an album.
Video downloading is similar, with there being many sites on the internet where it's possible to download films and videos and even watch them in browser, to save download space. This is again illegal but also carried other disadvantages such as being filled with potential viruses' and there being no promise of good quality. It's a gamble which could leave you with some films that may not even work, or some with faulty sound or picture etc. Video files are huge compared to audio tracks; they take hours to download which make it less likely to be downloaded off the internet and instead viewed in the browser.
This can be considered illegal with some films found on some websites but in most cases, video streaming is mostly legal using sites like YouTube and TV channel's own websites where they stream their programmes, allowing viewers to watch anything they've missed on the TV online at a more convenient time, such as iPlayer and 4OD. Streaming video requires them to buffer and load partially before beginning to view them, with the video continuaing to buffer as you watch (alternatively, you could wait for the entire video to buffer before watching it). The downside to this is that with a poor connection, the video may take a long time to buffer and you may not be able to watch it for long before it needs to pause to continue buffering.
Books can now also be downloaded and viewed online, using the electronic PDF format as well as HTML, MS Reader and some other formats. These can be downloaded quickly and efficiently due to their small size.
Video downloading is similar, with there being many sites on the internet where it's possible to download films and videos and even watch them in browser, to save download space. This is again illegal but also carried other disadvantages such as being filled with potential viruses' and there being no promise of good quality. It's a gamble which could leave you with some films that may not even work, or some with faulty sound or picture etc. Video files are huge compared to audio tracks; they take hours to download which make it less likely to be downloaded off the internet and instead viewed in the browser.
This can be considered illegal with some films found on some websites but in most cases, video streaming is mostly legal using sites like YouTube and TV channel's own websites where they stream their programmes, allowing viewers to watch anything they've missed on the TV online at a more convenient time, such as iPlayer and 4OD. Streaming video requires them to buffer and load partially before beginning to view them, with the video continuaing to buffer as you watch (alternatively, you could wait for the entire video to buffer before watching it). The downside to this is that with a poor connection, the video may take a long time to buffer and you may not be able to watch it for long before it needs to pause to continue buffering. Books can now also be downloaded and viewed online, using the electronic PDF format as well as HTML, MS Reader and some other formats. These can be downloaded quickly and efficiently due to their small size.
