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Distributed Media Synchronisation for Shared Video Watching: Issues, Challenges and Examples

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Social Media Retrieval

Part of the book series: Computer Communications and Networks ((CCN))

Abstract

Current societal changes are transforming the way people retrieve, annotate and share media. While in the past users gathered together around media content, this has become an exception rather than the norm. As demonstrated by the popularity of social networking and personal communication tools, people expect the development of novel technologies that: help them connect with others (e.g. by tagging images of a friend from high school). One key challenge in this respect is to support synchronous communication between people separated in space. This chapter focuses exactly on that technologies and infrastructures for supporting social interactions between people while apart. In particular, it discusses the synchronisation aspects of distributed media consumption (TV, YouTube videos, games, photo albums). As part of the quality of experience (QoE), synchronisation is a key requirement for ensuring consistency of the media experience across locations. Starting with an overview of the research problem, the contribution of this chapter is to detail current and envisioned architectures for achieving what is commonly known as Inter-Destination Media Synchronization (IDMS), a topic drawing the attention of academy and industry alike.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-RA-10-024/EN/KS-RA-10-024-EN.PDF

  2. 2.

    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics

  3. 3.

    http://www.skype.com/

  4. 4.

    http://mashable.com/2010/03/19/global-social-media-usage/

  5. 5.

    http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/22/social-tv-gets-real-with-hulu-on-facebook/

  6. 6.

    http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

  7. 7.

    http://sandbox.yahoo.com/Zync

  8. 8.

    http://explore.live.com/messenger

  9. 9.

    http://www.justin.tv/

  10. 10.

    http://www.ytsocial.com/

  11. 11.

    http://www.clipsync.com/

  12. 12.

    http://www.flickr.com/photosession

  13. 13.

    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/VNI_Hyperconnectivity_WP.html

  14. 14.

    http://www.sandvine.com/downloads/documents/05-17-2011_phenomena/Sandvine\%20Global\%20Internet\%20Phenomena\%20Spotlight\%20-\%20Netflix\%20Rising.pdf

  15. 15.

    https://www.netflix.com

  16. 16.

    http://www.hulu.com/

  17. 17.

    http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-consumers-watch-nielsens-q1-2010-three-screen-report/

  18. 18.

    http://developer.apple.com/resources/http-streaming/

  19. 19.

    http://www.iis.net/download/smoothstreaming

  20. 20.

    http://www.adobe.com/devnet/rtmp.html

  21. 21.

    Multimedia information can be modelled as streams that are made up of a time sequence of finite MDUs (also called in other works Media Units, MU; Information Units, IU; or Logical Data Units, LDU).

Abbreviations

3GP:

Third Generation Partnership Project or 3GPP file format

AM:

Amplitude modulation

AMP:

Adaptive media playout

ATSC:

Advanced Television System Committee

AVTCORE:

Audio/Video Transport Core Maintenance working group

BBC:

British Broadcasting Corporation

CMTS:

Cable modem termination system

CRT:

Cathode ray tube

DASH:

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP

DCR:

Degradation category rating

DCS:

Distributed control scheme

DMB:

Digital Multimedia Broadcasting

DTH:

(ATSC) Direct to Home (Satellite)

DSLAM:

Digital subscriber line access multiplexer

DTMB:

Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast

DVB:

Digital Video Broadcasting

ETSI:

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

FM:

Frequency modulation

GPS:

Global Positioning System

HD:

High definition

HTML:

HyperText Markup Language

HTTP:

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

IDMS:

Inter-Destination Media Synchronization

IETF:

Internet Engineering Task Force

IPTV:

Internet Protocol Television

ISDB:

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting

ISP:

Internet service provider

ITU:

International Telecommunication Union

M/S:

Master/slave

MPD:

Media Presentation Description

MDU:

Media data unit

MMSH:

Microsoft Media Server HTTP streaming

MOS:

Mean opinion score (MOS)

MPEG:

Moving Picture Experts Group

MSAS:

Media Synchronization Application Server

NOS:

Nederlandse Omroep Stichting

NTP:

Network Time Protocol

P2P:

Peer to peer

QoE:

Quality of experience

QoS:

Quality of service

RFC:

Request for Comments

RR:

(RTCP) receiver report

RTCP:

Real-Time Transmission Control Protocol

RTMP:

Real-Time Messaging Protocol

RTP:

Real-Time Transmission Protocol

RTSP:

Real-Time Streaming Protocol

SD:

Standard definition

SDES:

(RTCP) source description report

SMS:

Synchronisation maestro scheme

SPST:

Synchronization Packet Sender Type

SR:

(RTCP) sender report

Sync:

Synchronisation

TISPAN:

Telecommunications and Internet converged Services and Protocols for Advanced Networking

TV:

Television

XR:

(RTCP) Extended Report

VoD:

Video on Demand

VoIP:

Voice over IP

WG:

Working group

XML:

Extensible Markup Language

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Acknowledgments

UPV: This work has been financed, partially, by Universitat Politècnica de Valencia (UPV), under its R&D support programme in PAID-05-11-002-331 Project and in PAID-01-10.

CWI: The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement no. ICT-2011-7-287723 (Reverie project). The authors would like to thank the fruitful collaboration with David Geerts (K.U. Leuven) and with Ishan Vaishnavi (CWI & Huawei).

UPV and CWI: The authors would like to thank the following people working at TNO: Hans Stokking, Ray van Brandenburg and M. Oskar van Deventer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Calle Paraninfo 1, 46730, Grao de Gandia, Valencia, Spain

    Fernando Boronat & Mario Montagud

  2. Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Science Park 123, Amsterdam, 1098 XG, The Netherlands

    Rufael Mekuria & Pablo Cesar

Authors
  1. Fernando Boronat
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  2. Rufael Mekuria
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  3. Mario Montagud
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  4. Pablo Cesar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fernando Boronat .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, United Kingdom

    Naeem Ramzan

  2. Director of Product Innovation, Search, Netflix, Winchester Circle 100, Los Gatos, 95032, California, USA

    Roelof van Zwol

  3. School of Integrated Technology, Yonsei University, 162-1 Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, 406-840, Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

    Jong-Seok Lee

  4. Institut für Telekommunikationssysteme, Technische Universität Berlin, Einsteinufer 17, Berlin, 10587, Germany

    Kai Clüver

  5. Media Computing Group, Microsoft Research, 555 108th Ave NE, Bellevue, 98004, Washington, USA

    Xian-Sheng Hua

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Boronat, F., Mekuria, R., Montagud, M., Cesar, P. (2013). Distributed Media Synchronisation for Shared Video Watching: Issues, Challenges and Examples. In: Ramzan, N., van Zwol, R., Lee, JS., Clüver, K., Hua, XS. (eds) Social Media Retrieval. Computer Communications and Networks. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4555-4_18

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