STORAGE-ALLOCATION POLICIES FOR TIME-DEPENDENT MULTIMEDIA DATA

Multimedia computing requires support for heterogeneous data types wit h differing storage, communication, and delivery requirements. Continu ous media data types such as audio and video impose delivery requireme nts that are not satisfied by conventional physical storage organizati ons. In this paper, we describe a physical organization for multimedia data based on the need to support the delivery of multiple playout se ssions from a single rotating-disk storage device. Our model relates d isk characteristics to the different media recording and playback rate s and derives their storage pattern. This storage organization guarant ees that as long as a multimedia delivery process is running, starvati on will never occur. Furthermore, we derive bandwidth and buffer const raints for disk access and present an approach to minimize latencies f or non-continuous media stored on the same device. The analysis and nu merical results indicate the feasibility of using conventional rotatin g magnetic disk storage devices to support multiple sessions for on-de mand video applications.