Interactive multimedia synchronisation in the distributed environment using the formal approach

Several synchronisation problems should be solved in order to develop interactive multimedia applications in the distributed environment. These problems include intra-medium synchronisation, inter-media synchronisation, and interactive synchronisation. The dynamic extended finite state machine (DEFSM) model, and the corresponding control schemes to handle four VCR-like user interactions, i.e. reverse, skip, freeze-restart, and scale, in distributed interactive multimedia presentations are proposed. The development of a distributed interactive multimedia synchronization specification and execution system is also described. The synchronisation specification and execution system is based on the proposed DEFSM model and the corresponding synchronisation control schemes. The DEFSM model and the control schemes can be incorporated as the synchronisation control kernel of distributed interactive multimedia systems. In this way, system developers do not need to deal with the details of multimedia synchronisation.