SMART: a synchronization scheme for providing multimedia quality in emerging wireless Internet

In this paper, we present a novel synchronization scheme for multimedia applications that can provide high quality playback performance in emerging wireless environments. Because of the increasing size of global networks and the integration of wireless services, end-to-end delays are gradually increasing. Under these new conditions the existing synchronization schemes based on feedback, can no longer provide the necessary synchronization and thus quality needed for multimedia applications. We propose a novel synchronization scheme that requires no feedback, and which at the same time minimizes the required buffer space. We show that the proposed scheme performs very well, while significantly reducing communication overhead due to the control scheme by removing the feedback loop. Moreover, as its minimal buffer requirements are independent of network delays, the proposed scheme is inherently scalable for the evolving wireless environments.

[1]  Ahmet M. Kondoz,et al.  Provision of streaming media services over mobile networks , 2001 .

[2]  Azzedine Boukerche,et al.  MoSync: A synchronization scheme for cellular wireless and mobile multimedia systems , 2001, MASCOTS 2001, Proceedings Ninth International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems.

[3]  Ernst W. Biersack,et al.  Synchronized delivery and playout of distributed stored multimedia streams , 1999, Multimedia Systems.

[4]  Yan Xu,et al.  Calculation and analysis of compensation buffer size in multimedia systems , 2001, IEEE Communications Letters.

[5]  J. F. Huber,et al.  UMTS, the mobile multimedia vision for IMT-2000: a focus on standardization , 2000, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[6]  William C. Y. Lee,et al.  A synchronized radio system without stable clock sources , 2001, IEEE Wirel. Commun..

[7]  P. Venkat Rangan,et al.  Adaptive feedback techniques for synchronized multimedia retrieval over integrated networks , 1993, TNET.

[8]  Cathy H. Xia,et al.  Clock synchronization algorithms for network measurements , 2002, Proceedings.Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.

[9]  Azzedine Boukerche,et al.  A distributed synchronization scheme for multimedia streams in mobile systems: proof and correctness , 2001, Proceedings LCN 2001. 26th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks.

[10]  A. Hac,et al.  Buffer control scheme in multimedia synchronization , 1997, 1997 IEEE International Performance, Computing and Communications Conference.

[11]  Xu Yan,et al.  Buffer design for P-QoS in multimedia synchronization systems , 2001, 2001 International Conferences on Info-Tech and Info-Net. Proceedings (Cat. No.01EX479).

[12]  Imrich Chlamtac,et al.  Control scheme analysis for multimedia inter- and intra-stream synchronization , 2003, IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2003. ICC '03..

[13]  Anna Hác,et al.  Synchronization in multimedia data retrieval , 1997, Int. J. Netw. Manag..