Classification of Video Communications Applications

From the networking aspect, digital video applications can be categorised to point-to-point and point-to-multipoint applications, the latter including multicast and broadcast applications. Another classification distinguishes between real-time applications and non-real-time applications. Real-time implies that the pre-recorded or live information is transmitted from the source to the sink(s) and is displayed at approximately the same time. In other words, the receiver does not need to download and buffer the whole video information before displaying it.

Real-time transmission is a prerequisite of interactive applications such as videoconferencing and personal communications. Obviously, only real-time video communications as they were defined above are in the scope of this document, and these will be examined in the following sections. In the Internet context, such applications are also called streaming applications, especially when they do not involve two-way video communication.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws