A continuous media transport and orchestration service

The desire to transfer continuous media such as digital audio and video across packet switched networks imposes a number of new requirements on transport level communication services. This paper identifies a number of these requirements in the context of an experimental distributed multimedia infrastructure, and reports on research which addresses some of the associated issues. Particular attention is paid to two areas: (i) extended Quality of Service (QoS) provision; and (ii) support for the co-ordination of multiple related connections. We then describe an application level service, known as an orchestrator, which performs synchronisation functions over multiple related transport connections. We also outline the design and implementation of a continuous media transport service which meets the identified requirements. Finally, we outline the way in which the orchestrator and transport services are integrated into an object-based distributed multimedia application platform.

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