Multimedia Communication Systems

Techniques, Standards, and Networks

Chapter 6
Multimedia Communication Across
Networks
Audio/Video
 Nguyen Slides
 Digitized versions are bursty
 Can be statistically multiplexed
 Can be packetized
 Continuously connected circuits waste
resources
Packet Voice
 Mostly silence
 Only active 35% - 45% of the time
 Delay
 Acceptable range 100 – 600 mSec
 Packet size
 200 – 700 speech bits
 Packet headers 4 – 8 bytes
 Speech content
 10 – 50 mSec
Packet Voice
 Additional information
 Possibly required
 Time stamps
 Sequence number
 Flow control

 Not required
 Error detection
 Acknowledgement
 Retransmission
Timing Reconstruction
 NTI – Null Timing Information
 No time stamps
 An arbitrary fixed transmission delay is assumed
 Essentially a fixed buffer
 Processing delay
 All subsequent packets are assumed to arrive after a
shorter networking processing delay
 CTI – Complete Timing Information
 Each packet delay is measured
 Can be relative or global timing
 Suitable for highly variable delay networks
Packet Video
 ATM
 Circuit switched (fixed delay, jitter)
 Small cells (48 octet payload and 5 octet header)
 IP
 Packet switched (Route is not predetermined)
 Variable length packets (Max 65,535 octets)
 IPv4 No QoS
 Variable queuing delays, out of order sequencing
 IPv6 QoS
 25 bit flow identifier
Video Source
 Highly variable bit rate & delay
 Compression algorithm
 Scene complexity
 Network traffic
 Packet switched networks
 Difficult to create statistical models
 Hard to negotiate QoS at setup
 UPC & NPC (usage/network parameter control)
Policing Mechanisms
 Rate Control – the amount of information is
regulated
 Rate Shaping – controls when the information
is sent
 Leaky Bucket
 Multiresolution encoding (layering)
 Coarse resolution – high priority stream
 Fine detail – low priority stream (prone to discard)
Simulcast Layers
 Multiple independent layers
 Different bit rates
Dependent Layering
 Layers can be dropped to support a
constant bit rate
 congestion control, etc.
Transmission Errors
 FEC – allows the receiver to correct errors
 RVLC – reversible variable length coding
 Inserts resynchronization markers
 Error resilient entropy coding
 Rearranges variable length blocks into fixed length slots
 Attaches a prefix code
 Temporal/spatial errors
 Periodically inert I pictures
 Segment the data domain
 i.e. even/odd frames
Error Concealment
 Replace a damaged macroblock with
the previous correct one
 Interpolate the block from surrounding
pixels
 POCS Projection onto convex sets
 An iterative technique, not suitable for real-
time
Rate Control
 How to cope with bandwidth
fluctuations
 Traffic shaping
 Leaky bucket
 Token bucket

 SRC – scaleable rate control

 The amount of compression is adjusted
 Complex math
Internet Video Transport
 Download mode
 The entire clip is downloaded before
viewing
 Streaming mode
 The video clip may be viewed while
transmission is in progress
Video Streaming Architecture
 Video compression
 Application layer QoS
 Adapts the video bit rate to the network
 Continuous media distribution services
 An extranet or internet
 Streaming servers
 Retrieves the streaming media from storage
 Media synchronization
 Audio, video, data etc.
 Media protocols
Video Streaming Architecture

Streaming media systems

Video Compression
 Scaleable
 Deals gracefully with bandwidth fluctuations
 A compromise between efficiency, flexibility, &
complexity
 Compresses data into multiple substreams
 Each DCT coefficient bit can be assigned to a different
stream (i.e. MSB = coarse)
 FGS PFGS
 Non Scalable
Streaming Constraints
 Requires bounded end-to-end delay
 Rate control is needed to avoid
congestion
 Receiver buffering is required
 Must deal with packet loss
 Simple decoding is needed for low
power receivers
 PDAs, cell phones, etc.
Application Layer QoS
 Avoid Congestion (Rate Control)
 Source based
 The rate is determined by a Probe or Model
 Receiver based
 The receiver adds/drops channels
 Hybrid
 Both the source & receiver adjust the bit rate
 Maximize video quality
Continuous Media Services
 Use network filters
 Frame dropping for congestion control
 Content replication
 Caching (local copies)
 Mirroring (duplicated servers)
Streaming Servers
 Consists of
 Communicator
 Applications and transport layer protocols
 Operating system
 Storage system

 Support VCR-like controls

 Flash Media Server
Media Synchronization
 Three levels
 Intrastream
 Maintains continuity of a logical stream
 i.e. Voice or video

 Interstream
 Maintains timing between streams
 i.e. Voice and video

 Interobject
 Layers within streams
Streaming Protocols
 Network
 IP
 Transport
 UDP, TCP, RTP, RTCP
 Session
 RTSP, SIP
Streaming over ATM
 Internet video streaming