Server side “compresslets” for Internet multimedia streams

We introduce a new concept of a server-based architecture for continuous media streams, e.g., audio and video. This server architecture provides highly flexible, scalable media streaming for Internet applications. One of its key features is the client driven stream encoding and stream composition process. The client applies server side applets that control the encoding components for the various steps of the data compression pipeline. We therefore call these server side applets “compresslets”. In general, a compresslet will be uploaded from the client to the server for a dedicated client-server connection and will then control the flow of media data from the server to the client. Compresslet functionality can be combined with existing compression components residing in the server. Generic or often used components are retrieved from the server component repository while compresslet-specific functionality is uploaded into the server similar to the compresslet and executed there