Streaming refers to the normal flow of data as it travels to someone's desktop computer from a server through a network connection. The speed at which data moves is limited by the network connection. The typical connection for most users is a modem running at 56Kbps per second or slower.
All data moving to a user's machine over a network connection is streamed.
What makes a Flash movie stream differently than text, GIF, or JPEG files, for example, is that the data in a Flash movie file is stored sequentially by frame. As soon as the Flash Player receives all of the data for a single frame of a Flash movie, the Player immediately renders that frame to the screen without waiting for any more movie data to arrive. To understand streaming, it helps to understand how Flash stores data. Image data and sound data are stored somewhat differently. How Flash stores image data Image data in Flash consists of a set of coordinate values for each curve and fill that comprises the image.