A distributed multimedia system for application and communications

This paper presents a client-server system architecture for a wide range of consumer oriented multi-user, distributed multimedia system applications 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 signalling and control capabilities. The system architecture is based on a single or multiple application processing server as adjunct to the communication management server. The communication management server can be implemented through a central office switch or private branch exchange to accomplish the multicasting as well as communication management, multimedia servicing and other related tasks. The software architecture is based on object-oriented technology whereby multimedia application processes are designed as distributed objects that can be created, activated, suspended, re-activated, etc. This system allows applications to incorporate compressed multimedia data types including voice, audio, still image and motion video to utilize the available transmission bandwidth over the network