Introduction of multimedia on

the Internet
Composer: Li Shengchen

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT.................................................................................... .........................1
PREFACE............................................................................................. ..................2
SECTION A. STREAMING MULTIMEDIA..........................................................................2
SECTION B. PROTOCOLS........................................................................................3
RTP PROTOCOL....................................................................................... ............3
RTCP PROTOCOL..................................................................................... ............3
RTSP PROTOCOL..................................................................................... ............4
APPLICATIONS............................................................................. .........................4

Abstract
 Preface
Today, people can’t leave the Internet for a moment. People can do almost
everything on the Internet: chatting with friends, sharing video slips, and even
watching Television program. However, have you thought about that, why can we
enjoy the multimedia on the Internet and how can the Internet tackle the
multimedia? Based on the simple understanding of the Internet protocol and
reference technology about that, we will have a quick look at the one of the most
popular technology: Streaming multimedia.

Section A.Streaming Multimedia

Streaming Multimedia is known as a kind of Multimedia. This type of

Multimedia has some special features that the end-user receives the data
constantly. In the normal life, when you turn on a video or a TV set, you can
choose a channel. The video station or the television station will send the
program constantly to the set. The streaming Multimedia does the same job.
However, the data is not transported by Electromagnetic wave any more but is
transported by the network communication. On the other hand, some kinds of
multimedia, such as CD, tape are not streaming because the content of the
media is limited, which means that you can’t receive
non- periodically data constantly.

B ROADCAST
M ULTICAST U NICAST
In the normal life, the electromagnetic wave can find the way by
itself to the destination. However, in the network, the signal can’t find the way by
itself. They need the router to indicate a route. This involves router schemes. The
most common scheme used in streaming multimedia is multicast, which means
that several destinations can receive the same data from one resource. The
scheme board cast (all the hosts in a network will receive the same signal) is
rarely used and the scheme unicast (one source and one destination) is applied
sometimes.
When we pursue a quicker rate of streaming multimedia, we can improve the
quality of service in two ways: one is using advanced protocol to get higher
transporting rate another way is compression the size of data presenting the
same amount of message. This essay will introduce some common used
transportation protocols and wildly used compression formats of stream
multimedia.
In Section B, we are going to introduce several protocols about streaming
multimedia, they are originally designed for multicast scheme, but they will work
fine in unicast scheme.
 In Section C, we are going to introduce several compression formats of
streaming multimedia.
Section B.Protocols
RTP Protocol

4- 9
Bits 0-1 2 3 8 16-31
7 -15

V Sequence
0 P X CC M PT
er. Number

32 Timestamp

64 SSRC identifier

CSRC identifiers (optional)

96
…

96+(CC×32) Extension header (optional).

96+(CC×32)
+
Data
(X×((EHL+1)×32)
)

RTP, known as Real-time Transport Protocol, is a fifth layer protocol or an

application protocol. It can carry any data in a real-time character. That’s why we
use RTP to transport video and audio data. It is developed on the top of UDP
Protocol. As the features of UDP, the RTP can’t guarantee the order of delivery
and does not support the flow and congestion control directly. Since the RTP has
the common features of UDP, for the fourth layer, we usually use UDP instead of
TCP.
One of the most specialties of RTP is that, unlike HTTP and FTP, the RTP doesn’t
have a fixed port to use. The RTP uses the even port from 16384 to 32767
randomly. Moreover, the port being used by TRP is dynamic. Thus, the RTP is difficult to
traverse the firewall of a system. To solve this problem, we use a technology called STUN.

The RTP package has a minimize length of 8 bytes (64 bits), which contains the
following parts:
a) Sequence Number: Used for detecting the loss of packages by receivers.
b) Time Stamp: Used for timing. If the package can’t arrive in time, the
package would be discarded.
c) SSRC: The uniformly identifier of destination.
d) CSRC: The uniformly identifier of distribution.
 e) The part Ver, P, X, CC, M, and PT are control messages of RTP header.

RTCP Protocol

RTCP is known as the twins of RTP Protocol. As we mentioned before, the RTP
Protocol doesn’t provide the control of flow and congestion. But we can easily see
that for a piece of video, we can’t wait for a long period of time or see some
frame in wrong order or see some frame a second time. That is bound to cause
some confusion. Thus, the RTCP is coming to tackle this problem. Then, we know
that the RTCP just as TCP have functions of flow control and congestion control.
This guarantees that the radio we have received from the Internet is just the
same as the original one.
Like FTP, Port 21 for control message and Port 20 for transporting. The RTCP
uses a dynamic port as well, which is odd port higher than the one RTP used. The
RTCP however, unlike the RTP, which can only carry one sort of message from the
source to the destination, carries several kinds of messages including following:
a) Send report: To report the state of RTP transportation. It also includes an
absolute time stamp in order to indicate the send time exactly. The
absolute time stamp takes the mid night of January 1st 1900 as the starting
point and count the time with second.
b) Receiver report: This is used to inform all the clients on the network with the
quality of the service.

c) Source description message: It is sent periodically in order to give more details

about the source such as address of the owner or controller of the source etc.

d) Bye message: As its name suggests, it is used to cut off a stream and announced
that this resource has left the network.

e) Application-specific message: This message gives a definition of a new message

type.

RTSP Protocol

RTSP, known as Real Time Streaming Protocol, is another protocol involves

RTP. It provides some server command using to remote control. Unlike RTP and
RTCP, RTSP is assigned a default port 554. All the command is just like a VCR-
command as following:
a) DESCRIBE: This is a command requesting a RTSP URL and which type of
reply data will be transported. This type often uses ASCII Code to describe
the initialization parameters of streaming media.
 b) SETUP: It defines the method of transportation of streaming media. It
should be done before PLAY command. Furthermore, it contains the
media stream URL as well and the port RTP and RTCP will use.
c) PLAY, PAUSE, RECORD: They are just like the button of a VCR set with the
same function. They also contain the URL of stream media, which has
been sent by DESCRIBE command and SETUP command.
d) TEARDOWN: The end command. Shut up all the streaming transportation
and end the session.

Applications

Based on the protocols we introduced, the quality of service has improved a

lot. And this technology can transport the streaming multimedia fluently. This
method is commonly used. The following is the client of RTSP:
✔ MPC, Media classic Player, the compact media player in Microsoft
Windows.
✔ Window Media Player, a famous player and also a library of media,
developed by Microsoft and is the default player of Microsoft Window
Operation System.
✔ QuickTime: a digital player developed by Apple, which is famous on
account of iPod and Mac.
✔ Skype: a tool of chatting on line with voice. It is commonly used in
Europe. It also can make a phone call (IP), in several countries.
✔ Other client: Winamp, VLC media player, GStreamer, etc.