Media and protocols for multimedia communications over disparate networks
Stephen E. Jacobs, Alexandros Eleftheriadis · 1998
It is widely recognized that multimedia applications will be a \\killer-app. " These applications depend so heavily on the typeofnetwork used that no real time application can claim to be truly network-independent. We present two disparate networks and address the challenges in building real-time applications for each. First we examine a network which can provide guarantees on bandwidth and delay. Despite these network guarantees, the interaction between the server and the client can severely a ect the performance of the system, including scalability. Wepresent a model for providing an end-to-end guarantee on Quality of Service (QoS) by mapping QoS parameters at the video server to subjective parameters at the video client. We then present a network which cannot guarantee QoS. This network requires special protocols and algorithms for maintaining quality for the end user. Applications operating in this environment must continually adapt to the state of the network and mustdosoinaway that does not damage the performance of other tra c on the network. This involves extracting implicit or explicit information about the