MediaWare: on multimedia synchronization

Abstract

Temporal relationships are inevitable among multimedia objects. Synchronization of multiple data streams in time has thus been recognized as a crucial requirement for multimedia applications. We study the synchronization requirements among distributed multimedia objects. We describe a temporal model that deals with interstream and intrastream synchronization requirements in live media objects. Both the blocking policy and the restricted blocking policy are presented. In addition, our model handles the accurate and uncertain temporal requirements which may exist in the teleorchestration of fuzzy scenarios. The fuzzy scenarios that contain imprecise synchronization constraints, such as unknown object presentation starting or ending points, can be transformed into more accurate temporal specifications. The paper provides several examples to show our approach.