CD 321

MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY II
Lecture 4:
Multimedia Communication Systems
Outline
• Overview
• Cooperating computing
• Application Sharing approach
• Audio/video conferencing
• Transport Subsystems
Multimedia communication
• It deals with the transfer, the protocols, services and
mechanisms of discrete media data (such as text and
graphics) and continuous media data (like audio and video)
in/over digital networks.
• Such a communication requires all involved components to
be capable of handling a well-defined quality of service.
• The most important quality of service parameters are used
to request
i. the required capacities of the involved resources,
ii. compliance to end-to-end delay and jitter as timing
restrictions, and
iii. restriction of the loss characteristics.
Overview
• The OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model was created
by the ISO to help standardize communication between
computer systems.
• It divides communications into seven different layers, which
each include multiple hardware standards, protocols, or
other types of services.
Overview

• In Multimedia communication systems

issues are discussed related to above Link
layer.
• In OSI model, multimedia communication
systems are divided into two subsystems.
1. Application systems
2. Transport systems
Cont..,
• Application system is responsible for management and
services issues for group cooperation and supporting large
scale of multimedia applications.
• Transport system (here transport and network layer
protocols for multimedia applications are presented.
Cooperative Computing
• Cooperative computing is also known as Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
• Tools for cooperative computing:
i. Electronic mail
ii. Bulletin boards
iii. Screen sharing tools
iv. Application sharing
v. Text based conferencing systems
vi. Video conferencing systems (Mbone tools, Proshare
from Intel, Picture Tel, Teles online, NetMeeting from
Microsoft)
Cooperation Dimension
• Computer Supported Cooperation can be categorized according to the
following parameters;
Time
- Asynchronous cooperative work
- Synchronous cooperative work
User scale
- Single users, two users (dialogue, point to point, direct cooperation) or groups
with more than two users.)
- Static and dynamic groups if either the member are pre-determined or not.
Control
- Centralized i.e. controlled by a chairman
- Distributed i.e. control protocol provide consistent cooperation
Locality
- Cooperation at the same place
- Tele-cooperation of users at the different places.
Cooperation Awareness
• Cooperation-transparent systems: existing applications are
extended for cooperation.
• Single user document editors expanded for simultaneous
editing of shared document among several users eg. Some
text processor
• Cooperation-aware systems: Dedicated software application
for CSCW eg. Lotus Notes, Conferencing Systems.
Group Communication Architecture
Application Sharing Approach
Centralized
• A single copy of the shared application are available and runs
at one site only.
• All input are forwarded to the local site.
• Output (shared document) is distributed to all sites.
Replicated
• A copy of the shared application runs locally at each site
• Input distributed to all sites
Application Sharing Approach Architecture
Audio/Video Conferencing
• Audio/video conferencing is management service which control
simultaneous face-face communication between multiple users using
multiple media (video, audio, text etc.)
Video:
- Conference participants (all, speaker or moderator only).
- Large video walls with multiple high resolution screens may be used
especially for
• Conference with more than four participants
• Display view-graphs, images, animations etc.
 Audio
- Used for discussion
- Important for clarifying visual information.
Audio/Video Conferencing Services
Requirements:
- High bandwidth (for data intensive-media)
- Lower latency (for user interactivity)
- Distributed messaging of data and control information
Conferencing control:
- Management of conferences (Establishing, Closing,
Adding/removing Users )
- Providing information about conferences (conference name,
duration etc.)
Centralized or distributed control:
- Centralized control is easy to implement
- Distributed is much more complicated but less sensitive to failure.
Transport Subsystems
• Multimedia applications demand high requirements on network
protocol.
High data throughput
- Deliver data as much as possible.
Fast data forwarding
- Deliver data as fast as possible
Service guarantees
- Deliver data with the negotiated policies.
Multicasting
- 1:n and m:n point communication
- [a:b denotes: a senders and b receivers