Chapter 9. Media Streaming

Chapter Objectives

• Overview of MPEG-based and IP-based transports

• Discuss media layer issues, including MP3 and AAC

• Discuss MPEG time models and synchronization issues

• Overview JMF and SMIL for application integration

Media streaming is the transmission and processing of data that changes meaningfully with respect to time, such as audio and video clips, MIDI sequences, and animations. iTV media streaming has multiple layer and can be achieved in different ways. This chapter is intended to serve as an introductory overview of various issues and the various options and methods to address them. At the transport layer, streams can be transmitted as MPEG-2 elementary streams (this includes MPEG-4) or IP-based transports such as RTP and IP multicast. These transports carry data that encodes analog image, audio and video signals acquired using capture devices. These components are synchronized with various time models, and integrated using application-layer API, such as the JMF and the SMIL.