The further improvement of the technology of transporting the multimedia came with the introduction of custom server/client transport architecture, based on the more efficient UDP.

According to previous definition definition, a stream is data of a distinct type that is sent from server to client at a rate defined by the server, even if more bandwidth is available.

This technique introduces intelligent server which is in control of the data transmission.

Usually, the encoder software is also accompanied. There are basically two types of encoders, those that can only convert different file types to the one served, and those that can also encode live events, with help of a certain video capture board.

Probably the most popular and the most efficient video/audio streaming system today available, fits into this group - the Progressive Networks' RealAudio and RealVideo family of products.