Reasons to use RTP when streaming a pre-existing file?

The only reason I could think of for using RTP to transfer a pre-existing file is if you're trying to monitor the amount of time a user is streaming the file, like if you're 开发者_JAVA百科running a time-based On-Demand website. The other streaming-solution i know of is to use HTTP to upload a media file, then providing a client to progressively play the file. Can anyone come up with another reason to use RTP to stream media files?

You don't use RTP to transfer files, you use RTP to stream media to media players.

If you want to serve media RTP has some advantages:

• RTP capable clients can use the stream, they might not be able to use whatever else you come up with.
• Tolerates network congestion. If you serve the data over a TCP connection, the stream is quite sensible to packet loss and congestion. TCP has long timeouts and you might experience stalls.