Smart Media Transport: A Burgeoning Intelligent System for Next Generation Multimedia Convergence Service Over Heterogeneous Networks in China

Convergence service (CS), which integrates broadband and broadcast services, is considered promising in bridging the gap between scarce bandwidth and user demands for real-time, immersive, and super high-quality service in a ubiquitous environment. However, many urgent issues remain to be tackled in media transport system (MTS) to support CS. In this paper, the challenges MTS would entail over a heterogeneous network to diverse users are first analyzed. The architecture and functionalities of the smart media transport (SMT) system are then advocated and reviewed. Several key technologies in the SMT system, including hierarchical media-aware data model for content encapsulation, context-aware data protection mechanism for reliable transmission, and media synchronization control based on network condition estimation, are discussed. Field trial results on campus for certain CS are provided to validate the system design and illustrate the performance of the SMT system.