Multimedia communication

Abstract

Multimedia communication deals with the transfer, 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 (QoS). The most important QoS parameters are used to request: (1) the required capacities of the involved resources, (2) compliance to end-to-end delay and jitter as timing restrictions, and (3) restriction of the loss characteristics. In this paper, we describe the necessary issues and study the ability of current networks and communication systems to support distributed multimedia applications. Further, we discuss upcoming approaches and systems that promise to provide the necessary mechanisms and consider which issues are missing for a complete multimedia communication infrastructure.