A DISTRIBUTED MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM FOR APPLICATION AND COMMUNICATIONS

This paper presents a client-server system architecture for a wide ran ge of consumer oriented multi-user, distributed multimedia system appl ications over telecommunication networks for illustration purpose. The network selected for this was the Integrated services digital network due to its data transmission bandwidth and sophisticated Q.931 signal ing and control capabilities. The system architecture is based on a si ngle or multiple Application Processing Server as adjunct to the Commu nication Management Server. The Communication Management Server can be implemented through a Central Office Switch or Private Branch Exchang e to accomplish the multicasting as well as communication management, multimedia servicing and other related tasks. The software architectur e is based on object-oriented technology whereby multimedia applicatio n processes are designed as distributed objects that can be created, a ctivated, suspended, re-activated, etc. This system allows application s to incorporate compressed multimedia data types including voice, aud io, still image and motion video to utilize the available transmission bandwidth over the network.