Internet Multimedia - Streaming Media (Tutorial)

Abstract

Over the past decade, a set of protocols have been developed that support a variety of multimedia applications on the Internet, ranging from streaming media to Internet radio and TV to Internet telephony. All of these require new protocols and algorithms. The tutorial will review the principal components of the current multimedia architecture and outline how the challenges posed by a largely best-effort network can be met. It will also highlight some of the on-going developments such as fresh attempts at scalable resource reservation protocols. Topics: Types of Internet multimedia (streaming, continuous media, interactive media); Challenges of Internet multimedia (differences to other Internet traffic types; summary of codecs); Components of the Internet multimedia architecture; Multimedia transport (RTP; loss compensation and recovery; scalable feedback); Session setup and control for streaming media (RTSP); Internet telephony (session initiation: SIP and H.323; address mapping: ENUM; gateway location: TRIP; convergence with IM, presence and events); Future challenges: content distribution networks.