Communications Viewpoint

Dr. Fareed Ahmed Jokhio

 Communications Viewpoint
• Traditional view of Multimedia Systems
involve a local computer-based point of view.
• However, increasingly, the real issues seem to
arise from the communications aspect of
Multimedia.
 Terminology
• A sequence of individual packets (that
constitute the media) transmitted in a time-
dependent fashion is called a data stream.
 Terminology
• Packet
• A network packet is a formatted unit of data
carried by a packet-switched network. A
packet consists of control information and
user data, which is also known as the payload.
 Terminology
• Data stream.
• In connection-oriented communication, a data
stream is a sequence of digitally encoded
coherent signals used to transmit or receive
information that is in the process of being
transmitted. A data stream is a set of
extracted information from a data provider.
 Terminology
• The packets can carry information of either
continuous or discrete media.
• Examples:
• Continuous media stream: transmission of
speech in telephony
• Discrete media stream: retrieval of a
document from a database.
 Multimedia Data Streams
• The information that can be perceived by the
human senses is transported through
different media, such as text or sound.
• Humans communicate with computers by
means of various media, or use computers as
tools for communication with each other.
 Multimedia Data Streams
• ``A multimedia system is characterised by the
computer-controlled generation,
manipulation, presentation, storage, and
communication of independent discrete and
continuous media.''
 Multimedia Data Streams
• The ability to handle continuous media, such as
audio or video, distinguishes multimedia systems
from most conventional computer systems.
• Continuous media, while being actually discrete,
appear smooth to the human observer when
presented regularly and periodically at sufficiently
high frequencies.
• Therefore, continuous media are time dependent,
and their processing is subject to time constraints.
 Data Stream Characteristics of Continuous
Media
• Data Streams
• Asynchronous
– No delay guarantee
• Synchronous
– Bounded end-to-end delay
• Isochronous
– Bounded Delay Jitter (minimum and maximum); The
interval between consecutive packets that
constitute the media is bounded.
Transmission modes
 asynchronous data stream
• An asynchronous data stream is a stream of
data where values are emitted, one after
another, with a delay between them.
 Synchronous data
• Synchronous data transmission is
a data transfer method in which a
continuous stream of data signals is
accompanied by timing signals
Asynchronous vs Synchronous
 ISOCHRONOUS media
•  The ISOCHRONOUS (ISOC) format for
data transmission is a procedure or protocol
in which each information CHARACTER or
BYTE is individually synchronized or FRAMED
by the use of Start and Stop Elements, also
referred to as START BITS and STOP BITS.
 Continuous Media
• Inter-Packet interval
• Strongly Periodic
– (e.g., Pulse-code modulation PCM coded speech)
• Weakly Periodic
• Aperiodic (e.g., mouse events in Groupware)
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• The data stream characteristics in multimedia
system are related to any audio and video
data transfer.
• Also the data stream characteristics are
influenced by the compression during the data
transfer.
• Its characteristics apply for distributed as well
as local environment.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• Hence the data stream characteristics can be
discussed on the basic of three given properties or
factors.

1.According to the time intervals between

consecutive packets.
2.According to the variation of the amount between
consecutive packets.
3.According to the continuity or connection
between consecutive packets.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• 1.According to time intervals between
consecutive packets: 
• On the basic of this factor we find out three
properties they are:
• a) Strongly periodic data stream:
• b) Weakly periodic data stream:
• c) A-periodic data stream:
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• a) Strongly periodic data stream:
• If time intervals are of the same length
between two consecutive t packets that is a
constant, then the stream is called strongly
periodic and in the ideal case the jitter has the
value zero. For example: PCM coded speech in
traditional telephone switching.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• b) Weakly periodic data stream:
• If time intervals between two consecutive
packets is not constant but are of periodic
nature with finite period then the data stream
is called weakly periodic.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• c) A-periodic data stream:
• If the sequence of time intervals is neither
strongly nor weakly periodic, instead the time
period or time gap various between packets to
packets during transmission then such data
stream is called A-periodic data stream.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• 2.According to variation of consecutive
packet amounts:
• On the basis of these factors there are also
three types of data stream they are:
• a) Strongly regular data stream:
• b) Weakley regular data stream:
• c) Irregular data stream:
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• a) Strongly regular data stream:
• If the amount of data stays constant during
the life time of a data stream, this feature is
specially found in uncompressed digital data
transmission, For example video stream of
camera in uncompressed form, audio stream
of CD.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• b) Weakley regular data stream:
• If the amount of data stream varies
periodically with time and not shows the
behaviors of strongly regular data stream then
it is called Weakley regular data stream, For
example compressed video stream.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• c) Irregular data stream:
• If the amount of data is neither constant nor
changes according to a periodic function, then
the data streams are called irregular data
stream. Transmission and processing of this
category data stream is more complicated.
Since data stream has a variable (bit) rate after
applying compression methods.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• 3.According to continuity or connection
between consecutive packets.:
• On the basic of this factor their can be also 2
types or characters:
• a) Continuous data stream: 
• b) Unconnected data stream:
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• a) Continuous data stream: 
• If consecutive packets are directly transmitted
one after another without any time gap then
such data streams are called continuous data
stream, For example audio data use for B
channel of Isdn with transmission rate for 64
kbps.
 Data stream characteristics for continuous
media:
• b) Unconnected data stream:
• A data stream with gaps between information
units is called as unconnected data stream.
The transmission of a connected data stream
through a channel with a higher capacity
treads gaps between individual packets, for
example the data stream coded with JPEG
method with 1.2 mbps on a FDDI network.
Summarizing Data Stream Characteristics

• An NTSC video signal is captured from a video

camera and digitized in a computer, yet no
compression is done. The created data stream
is strongly periodic, strongly regular and
connected. There are no gaps among the pkts.
Summarizing Data Stream Characteristics

• If, during the digitizing process, a compression

method is used, the resulting data stream
(considered over a long period) is weakly
periodic, weakly regular, and, through
transmission over a 16 Mbps Token Ring,
unconnected.