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.

Advances in hardware, software, and audiovisual rendering technologies of recent years have unleashed a wealth of new capabilities and possibilities for multimedia applications, creating a need for a comprehensive, up-to-date reference. The Encyclopedia of Multimedia Technology and Networking provides hundreds of contributions from over 200 distinguished international experts, covering the most important issues, concepts, trends, and technologies in multimedia technology. This must-have reference contains over 1,300 terms, definitions, and concepts, providing the deepest level of understanding of the field of multimedia technology and networking for academicians, researchers, and professionals worldwide.

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.

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.