A RTP to HTTP video gateway

Abstract

Multicast audio and video conferences are today commonplace in certain parts of the Internet. The vast majority of Internet users, however, are not able to participate in these events because they either lack multicast network connectivity, are located behind firewalls, have insufficient network resources available or don't have access to the proper software tools. In many cases all of these restrictions apply. This paper presents an effort to extend the scope of multicast video conferencing by the development of an Internet video gateway that interconnects multicast networks with the World Wide Web. The overall design of the gateway software is outlined and a novel algorithm for rate control of the multicast video flows is described. Some performance tests that show the efficacy of the system in terms of resource utilisation and scalability are presented. Keywords Multimedia gateways, Multicast, Video, RTP, HTTP 1.