Real-time multimedia systems

The expansion of multimedia networks and systems depends on real-time support for media streams and interactive multimedia services. Multimedia data are essentially continuous, heterogeneous, and isochronous, three characteristics with strong real-time implications when combined. At the same time, some multimedia services, like video-on-demand or distributed simulation, are real-time applications with sophisticated temporal functionalities in their user interface. We analyze the main problems in building such real-time multimedia systems, and we discuss-under an architectural prospect-some technological solutions especially those regarding determinism and efficient synchronization in the storage, processing, and communication of audio and video data.