DISTRIBUTED MULTIMEDIA SYNCHRONIZATION SPECIFICATIONS USING M(2)EST

In order to properly schedule related multimedia objects, synchronizat ion relationships of multimedia objects should be precisely specified and dispatched. Each multimedia presentation schedule contains two par ts: (1) the state-transition control part, which specifies intra-mediu m and inter-media synchronization information, and (2) the data variab les part, which specifies the dynamic aspects of the state-transition control for dealing with jitter and skew. In this paper, we propose a specification language for specifying multimedia synchronization. The language is called (MEST)-E-2, which represents the MultiMedia Extende d State Transition. (MEST)-E-2 can handle both the state-transition co ntrol part and the data variables part in multimedia presentation sche duling. Using (MEST)-E-2, the temporal behavior of each medium stream is handled by an actor extended finite state machine (EFSM). The tempo ral relationships among media streams are handled by a synchronizer EF SM. Synchronizer and actors perform multimedia presentations cooperati vely. The corresponding synchronization schemes, including both intra- stream and inter-stream synchronization schemes, which rectify the ran dom networks delays caused on distributed presentation environment, ca n also be specified using (MEST)-E-2. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.