Multimedia Networking Technology Management And Applications

In recent years rapid Internet growth has pushed the development of new multimedia applications in all aspects of life such as entertainment, communication, collaborative work and electronic commerce. Future applications will make use of different technologies like voice, data and video, but in order to make such a wide variety of multimedia applications successful, a number of technology and management issues must be addressed. Multimedia Networking: Technology, Management and Applications addresses the dynamic and efficient uses of resources ? a fundamental aspect of multimedia networks. Geared toward professionals, educators and students alike, this exciting new book will detail current research and the future direction of multimedia networking.

The transportation of multimedia over the network requires timely and errorless transmission much more strictly than other data. This had led to special protocols and to special treatment in multimedia applications (telephony, IP-TV, streaming) to overcome network issues. This book begins with an overview of the vast market combined with the user’s expectations. The base mechanisms of the audio/video coding (H.26x etc.) are explained to understand characteristics of the generated network traffic. Further chapters treat common specialized underlying IP network functions which cope with multimedia data in conjunction which special time adaption measures. Based on those standard functions these chapters can treat uniformly SIP, H.248, High-End IP-TV, Webcast, Signage etc. A special section is devoted to home networks which challenge high-end service delivery due to possibly unreliable management. The whole book treats concepts described in accessible IP-based standards and which are implemented broadly. The book is aimed at graduate students/practitioners with good basic knowledge in computer networking. It provides the reader with all concepts of currently used IP technologies of how to deliver multimedia efficiently to the end user.

This practical resource provides a survey on the technologies, protocols, and architectures that are widely used in practice to implement networked multimedia services. The book presents the background and basic concepts behind multimedia networking, and provides a detailed analysis of how multimedia services work, reviewing the diverse network protocols that are of common use to implement them. To guide the explanation of concepts, the book focuses on a representative set of networked multimedia services with proven success and high penetration in the telecommunication market, namely Internet telephony, Video-on-Demand (VoD), and live IP television (IPTV). Contents are presented following a stepwise approach, describing each network protocol in the context of a networked multimedia service and making appropriate references to the protocol as needed in the description of other multimedia services. This book also contains questions and exercises to provide the reader with insight on the practical application of the explained concepts. Additionally, a laboratory practice is included, based on open-source tools and software, to analyze the operation of an Internet telephony service from a practical perspective, as well as to deploy some of its fundamental components.

We are delighted to present the proceedings of the 8th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Management of Multimedia Networks and Services (MMNS 2005). The MMNS 2005 conference was held in Barcelona, Spain on October 24–26, 2005. As in previous years, the conference brought together an international audience of researchers and scientists from industry and academia who are researching and developing state-of-the-art management systems, while creating a public venue for results dissemination and intellectual collaboration. This year marked a challenging chapter in the advancement of management systems for the wider management research community, with the growing complexities of the “so-called” multimedia over Internet, the proliferation of alternative wireless networks (WLL, WiFi and WiMAX) and 3G mobile services, intelligent and high-speed networks scalable multimedia services and the convergence of computing and communications for data, voice and video delivery. Contributions from the research community met this challenge with 65 paper submissions; 33 high-quality papers were subsequently selected to form the MMNS 2005 technical program. The diverse topics in this year’s program included wireless networking technologies, wireless network applications, quality of services, multimedia, Web applications, overlay network management, and bandwidth management.

As ubiquitous multimedia applications benefit from the rapid development of intelligent multimedia technologies, there is an inherent need to present frameworks, techniques and tools that adopt these technologies to a range of networking applications. Intelligent Multimedia Technologies for Networking Applications: Techniques and Tools promotes the discussion of specific solutions for improving the quality of multimedia experience while investigating issues arising from the deployment of techniques for adaptive video streaming. This reference source provides relevant theoretical frameworks and leading empirical research findings and is suitable for practitioners and researchers in the area of multimedia technology.

A comprehensive resource on multimedia communications. Covers recent trends and standardization activities in multimedia communications, such as layered structures, underlying theories and the current best design techniques. Describes the convergence of various technologies including communications, broadcasting, information technology, and home electronics, and emerging new communication services and applications resulting from the growth of the Internet and wireless technologies. Please go to www-ee.uta.edu/dip for additional information.