An experimental ATM-based video-on-demand system on a Macintosh platform

Author

Lin, Mengjou ; Singer, David

Author_Institution

Commun. Products Technol., Apple Comput. Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

13-16 Oct 1996

Firstpage

59

Lastpage

68

Abstract

Video-on-demand (VOD) systems can support multiple concurrent video accesses with guaranteed user-controlled quality of service (QoS). The growth of VOD systems is driven by the increasing need for distributed multimedia applications such as company training, distance learning, telemedicine, and home entertainment. We propose and demonstrate an ATM-based (asynchronous transfer mode) VOD system (including VOD servers, clients and connection networks) based on a Macintosh platform. ATM is a promising network standard which may satisfy various requirements of VOD systems. In this VOD system, time-based data are encoded and decoded using the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard. Issues related to VOD system design, including the multimedia programming environment, the required system modification to support remote MPEG playback, ATM networking, process scheduling, and buffer management for both VOD servers and clients, are discussed and analyzed based on the Macintosh platform. A prototype VOD system is used to explore the design issues proposed. The Macintosh platform provided an efficient and jitter-free VOD system supporting MPEG movie playback through ATM networks

Keywords

Apple computers; asynchronous transfer mode; buffer storage; code standards; distributed processing; multimedia communication; network servers; programming environments; telecommunication computing; telecommunication networks; telecommunication standards; video coding; ATM networking; ATM networks; MPEG movie playback; MPEG standard; Macintosh platform; Moving Picture Experts Group; VOD servers; VOD system design; VOD systems; asynchronous transfer mode; buffer management; company training; connection networks; distance learning; distributed multimedia applications; home entertainment; multimedia programming environment; network standard; process scheduling; remote MPEG playback; telemedicine; video on demand system; Asynchronous transfer mode; Computer aided instruction; Decoding; Environmental management; MPEG standards; Multimedia systems; Network servers; Programming environments; Quality of service; Telemedicine;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Local Computer Networks, 1996., Proceedings 21st IEEE Conference on

Conference_Location

Minneapolis, MN

ISSN

0742-1303

Print_ISBN

0-8186-7617-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LCN.1996.558132

Filename

558132