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I've always wondered if using a remote desktop is the same as looking at a series of pictures online. As far as I can tell, the client machine I use to log onto a remote desktop produces (draws) a series of images on the client screen in real-time in response to the changing screen content of some remote machine.
However, looking at a series of images online often results in plenty of bandwidth and data usage (>100MB per hour) whereas RDPs only seem to use about 20MB per hour even with a lot of window-switching within the RDP. How so?
How is the "visual content" of a remote desktop transmitted to a client? Is this the same as how content of images is transmitted?
SNag
Posted 2014-09-14T20:52:29.310
Reputation: 773
1Much like MPEG2 only the parts of the screen that change considerably are transmitted... This means that a whole screen re-draw in unnecessary. – Kinnectus – 2014-09-14T21:06:12.720
RDP generates (a lot of) the window on the client side. VNC and alike do full desktop screenshots like you're thinking, utilizing techniques similar to what @BigChris mentions. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-09-14T21:38:55.330
possible duplicate of What's the difference between RDP vs VNC?, Difference between vnc and Windows Remote Desktop?. Both have excellent answers that explain how the technologies work.
– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-09-14T21:39:01.603Thanks! All good now -- RDP works by sending instructions on how to draw the screen to the client computer. Rather than sending a picture of a Window, the host machine sends a description of the window to the client machine, then the client machine is responsible for rendering an image and displaying it. -- from Difference between vnc and Windows Remote Desktop?
– SNag – 2014-09-15T06:30:15.530