The Future of Multimedia Distributed Systems - IPTV Frameworks

2005

The availability of increasing network bandwidth and computing power provides new opportunities for videoconferencing systems over Internet. Multimedia capable devices with broadband Internet connections are spreading rapidly. Even cell phones will have broadband Internet access in the near future. This requires universally accessible and scalable videoconferencing systems that can deliver thousands of concurrent audio and video streams. However, developing videoconferencing systems over Internet is a challenging task, since audio and video communications require high bandwidth and low latency. In addition, the processing of audio and video streams is computing intensive. Therefore, it is particularly difficult to develop scalable systems that support high number of users with various capabilities. Current videoconferencing systems such as IP-Multicast and H.323 can not fully address the problem of scalability and universal accessibility. These systems lack flexible service oriented architecture to support increasingly diverse. We believe that with the advancements in computing power and network bandwidth, more flexible and service oriented systems should be developed. In this paper, we outline a service oriented architecture for videoconferencing, GlobalMMCS, based on a publish/subscribe event brokering network, NaradaBrokering.

Ibm Systems Journal, 1997

In September 1993, the Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research, in collaboration with the IBM Toronto Laboratory Centre for Advanced Studies, initiated a major project on Broadband Services. The goal of this major project is to provide the software technologies required for the development of distributed multimedia applications. Of particular interest are \presentational" applications where multimedia documents, stored in database servers, are retrieved by remote users over a broadband network. Emphasis is placed on e ciency and service exibility. By e ciency, w e mean the ability to support many users and many m ultimedia documents. As to service exibility, w e mean the application is able to support a wide range of quality of service requirements from the users, adapt to changing network conditions, and support multiple document t ypes. The research program consists of six constituent projects: multimedia data management, continuous media le server, quality of service negotiation and adaptation, scalable video encoding, synchronization of multimedia data, and project integration. These projects are investigated by a m ulti-disciplinary team from eight institutions across Canada. Multimedia news has been selected as a target application for development, and the results from the various projects have b e e n i n tegrated into a multimedia news prototype. In this paper, the system architecture, research results, and the prototyping e ort, are presented.

2003

Abstract True VoD systems provide interactive on-demand video service by allocating each client a dedicated stream. Such a scheme is inefficient when the system has a large number of users. A more scalable solution is to use a combination of multicast and unicast channels with client buffering.

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Transmitting TV programs over the Internet has always been a great issue in multimedia service. With the advent of broadband internet connectivity, real time video and audio delivery on the Internet is getting popular day by day. Although the industry is making great and highly publicized plans for future (inter)national video on demand, there is lack of robust, scalable and interoperable architecture for Internet Television System. In this paper we present a Service Oriented Architecture for a Multi Channel Internet Television System. TV Program Servers, which are capable of capturing and transmitting media, registers with the Broker Server. The Internet TV Clients query the Broker Server, which maintains a list of available program servers and a complex data structure about the clients already connected. The strength of this architecture is that, it can be implemented over the existing network and no special expensive hardware setup is required. The application of the service-oriented paradigm makes the registration, composition and discovery of services efficient, and hence the system is perfectly suitable for medium to large scale Internet Television.

2002

This paper presents a unified set of abstractions and operations for hardware devices, software processes, and media data in a distributed audio and video environment. These abstractions, which are provided through a middleware layer called Indiva, use a file system metaphor to access resources and high-level commands to simplify the development of Internet webcast and distributed collaboration control applications. The design and implementation of Indiva are described and examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the abstractions.

2004

This paper presents a unified set of abstractions and operations for hardware devices, software processes, and media data in a distributed audio and video environment. These abstractions, which are provided through a middleware layer called Indiva, use a file system metaphor to access resources and high-level commands to simplify the development of Internet webcast and distributed collaboration control applications. The design and implementation of Indiva are described and examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the abstractions.

1995

Abstract An open architecture for the distribution of networked multimedia was designed, with the goal being to to allow interoperability between diverse networked multimedia distribution systems built for a range of applications. The approach taken was to use existing standards and technologies as much as possible, especially the World Wide Web and the Internet.

Multimedia Computing and Networking 2004, 2003

This paper presents a unified set of abstractions and operations for hardware devices, software processes, and media data in a distributed audio and video environment. These abstractions, which are provided through a middleware layer called Indiva, use a file system metaphor to access resources and high-level commands to simplify the development of Internet webcast and distributed collaboration control applications. The design and implementation of Indiva are described and examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the abstractions.

Middleware is a layer of software that is used by applications to locate people and resources and to provide security. Middleware in the form of authentication, authorization, and directory services is especially of interest for improving the scalability and security of managed multimedia applications. This paper describes the problems, challenges and solutions to creating middleware for real-time voice/videoconferencing applications. As part of the Internet2 Middleware and National Science Foundation Middleware Initiatives, we have designed, built and deployed middleware for scalable videoconferencing and other Internet multimedia applications. Two standards are currently used for signaling in such applications: H.323, the ITU-T signaling standard used in most of today's commercial video-conferencing systems; and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), an IETF approved standard for voice and video communications. Specific outcomes of our research include the creation of the International ITU-T standard called H.350 Directory Services Architecture for Multimedia Conferencing; an advanced SIP-based videoconferencing client that is secure and H.350 enabled; a prototype H.323 endpoint that is H.350 enabled; a Video Middleware 'Cookbook' that fully documents the H.350 architecture and provides detailed examples for software developers as well as configuration and deployment instructions; a large-scale test bed; example local and global directory services; and an architecture supporting single-sign-on authentication that is consistent with the federated administration model.

International Seminar on Client/Server Computing, 1995

This paper discusses the client-server computing requirements of networked multimedia services. The client-server programming model has traditionally supported mumerous data applications which can tolerate delay and jitter bounds. The quality of service (QoS) concept is mandatory for multimedia associations since it expresses the application requirements towards the communication subsystem. The application developer should be provided with a mechanism to select and control the QoS parameters applicable to the context of continuous media information transfer. As a consequence, the application programmer easily expresses his requirement for a multimedia multiparty call. At the user perception level diverse QoS parameters are issued which should be interpreted onto specific performance parameters by the communication subsystem. Dynamic management of QoS parameters should be provided either at the association establishment and the data transfer phases. The QoS parameter tuple identifies the entire multimedia association in space (i.e. end-to-end) as well as in time (i.e. during the lifetime of the association). This paper discusses the main weaknesses of existing client-server programming interfaces and proposes the enhancements that should take place to achieve appropriate computing for the development of multimedia networked services in view of new high-speed network technologies. Furthermore, the attractive features of new multimedia multiparty programming interfaces are presented and analysed.