Network Stream for Newbies (please help)

[Daviditalia23]

There are a lot of brilliant people in this forum... but that means I can’t understand everything people write! Can someone explain something complex to someone who is not as smart (me)?

I have been using the player on my phone for a long time to watch movies - ones that are not on Netflix, Hulu etc, like mostly Miyazaki movies and other Japan animation things, sometimes Disney things- I basically take download links for the movies from a leeching site and paste that link into URL section in network stream section... and then I simply watch the movie, buffered... not downloaded. Can someone explain to me how this player does this!? I don’t understand how a file that is downloadable can just be streamed if I’m not downloading it! But no space is taken up on my phone... it’s like a miracle... is It my player software that is converting it and streaming directly from this leeching website or is VLC downloading it first to their servers, converting it somewhere else then servicing it to me? Try to help me understand... thank you all, wish I was a s smart as people on here!