Master Selection Policies for Inter-destination Multimedia Synchronization in Distributed Applications

This paper presents an enhanced version of a proposed extension of the RTP/RTCP standard protocols to acquire Inter-Destination Multimedia Synchronization (IDMS) in one-way distributed applications. Several dynamic policies for selecting the master reference play out point to synchronize are introduced and their suitability is analyzed, for specific network conditions and application requirements, according to the impact of the play out adjustments (such as skips and/or pauses) on the overall quality and the buffer fullness variation. Simulation results prove the ability of our approach, for all the proposed master selection algorithms, to maintain the play out asynchrony between distributed receivers within acceptable limits, by dynamically adjusting their play out timing every time an allowed play out time discrepancy between their play out states is detected.