A multimedia real-time conferencing system: architecture and implementation

Authors:
L. Lamont;G. Henderson;N. D. Georganas
Affiliations:
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Venue:
CASCON '93 Proceedings of the 1993 conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research: software engineering - Volume 1
Year:
1993

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Abstract

In this paper, we describe a distributed real-time multimedia conferencing system architecture and implementation. The architecture provides a framework for allowing two or more users to communicate and exchange information and to simultaneously manipulate multimedia documents. It supports a variety of Computer Supported Collaborative Work applications and can be configured to cover diverse geographical distributions such as Local Area Networks interconnected through Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks. We also describe the implementation of a group-oriented multimedia conferencing system based on this architecture. This prototype, developed in the Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory (MCRLab) at the University of Ottawa, implements a joint text editing application within a multimedia conferencing system and employs a locking mechanism for concurrency control. The prototype has been implemented using TCP/IP on 386 computers running the UNIX operating system. The user interface has been developed using the Andrew User Interface System, an object-oriented multimedia user interface development system. Finally, new research based on the architecture and prototype is outlined. We have begun to investigate connection-oriented networks which will allow for the integration of audio and video into the architecture. We are also exploring methods to integrate distributed synchronization control algorithms into the model.