On the design of a high-speed network environment for multimedia applications

摘要

In this paper we present part of the results derived from the project `The Study and Design of a High-Speed Network Environment for Multimedia Applications.' In this work we study the characteristics of multimedia applications, especially for those which require network communication support, and a high speed network environment is developed to meet the special needs of multimedia communications. The multimedia high speed network environment that we have developed is based on two major works. At the session layer, a generic multiparty communication model is designed for multimedia applications that require multiparty communication support. At the transport layer, an enhanced version of a transport protocol called the multimedia real-time transfer protocol is developed to meet the special requirements of multiparty multimedia communication applications, such as real-time communication, multicast transmission, and media synchronization. For demonstration and verification of these works, a real-time multimedia conference system has been designed based on the generic multiparty communication model. A prototype of the real-time multimedia conference system has been implemented to evaluate the performance of the multimedia real-time transfer protocol. Together with the real-time multimedia conference system, a computer support cooperative work (CSCW) application called, CoXfig has been designed and implemented, also following the generic multiparty communication model. CoXfig is a cooperative drawing tool which conferees can use to share a common canvas and produce complex figures.