Adaptive causality and media synchronization control for networked multimedia applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a media synchronization scheme with adaptive /spl Delta/-causality control for networked multimedia applications in which the temporal and causal relationships exist among media streams such as computer data, voice, and video. In the scheme, the adaptive /spl Delta/-causality control, which varies the value of /spl Delta/ of the /spl Delta/-causality control according to the network load, is performed for causality, and the virtual-time rendering (VTR) algorithm, which the authors previously proposed, is used for media synchronization. The scheme also performs group (or inter-destination) synchronization control, which adjusts the output timing among terminals for preservation of the fairness among them, as well as error control and traffic control. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the scheme by carrying out an experiment of a networked shooting game.