MMC1
MMC1
MMC1
1. Interpersonal communications
2. Interactive applications over the internet
3. Entertainment applications
Interpersonal Communications
• Interpersonal communications may involve speech, image, text or
video.
• In some cases just a single type of medium is involved while in others
two or more media types are integrated together.
Speech only
• Interpersonal communications involving speech i.e. telephone have
been provided using telephones that are connected either to a PSTN
or PBx
• By using a multimedia PC equipped with a microphone and speakers,
the user can take part in telephone calls through the PC
• This requires a telephone interface card and associated software which
is known as computer telephony integration (CTI).
• In addition to telephony, many public and private networks support
additional services. Two examples are voice mail and teleconferencing.
Image only
An alternative form of interpersonal communications over a PSTN or
an ISDN is by exchange of electronic images of documents which is
known as facsimile or fax
• Text only
• Example of interpersonal communication involving just text is
Electronic mail (E mail).
• The user terminal is normally workstation or computer. The most widespread network
used is the Internet.
• In case of user at home can access to the internet is through a PSTN/ISDN and an
Internet Service Provider (ISP) network.
• Business user obtains access either through an enterprise network or site/campus
network
• Each network is a set of one or more server computers. Each known as email server.
• Mail server contains a mailbox for each user connected to that network.
• A user can create and deposit mail into his or her mailbox and read mail from it.
• Both email server and internet gateway operate using standard Internet
communication protocols.
Text and images
• An example of an application that involves both text and images
integrated together is Computer supported Cooperative Working
(CSCW).
• The network used is an enterprise network, a LAN or the Internet.
• A distributed group of people in his or her place of work in where all are
working on the same project.
• The software associated with CSCW consists of a central program is
known as the whiteboard program and it is linked set of supported
programs one in each workstation.
• It is made up of two parts: Change notification part and an update
control part.
• Whenever a member of the group updates the contents of his/her
whiteboard, the change notification part sends details of the changes to
the whiteboard program.
• This give the changes to the update control in each of the other PCs
and these in turn update the contents of their copy of the whiteboard
Speech and video
• Video Telephony – Video camera in addition to microphone is used.
• A dedicated terminal / MM PC can be used for communication
• An entire display / window in PC is used.
• A two-way communication channel must be provided by the network with sufficient
bandwidth to support this integrated environment.
• Desktop video conferencing call is used in large corporations
• Bandwidth used is more
• Multipoint Control Unit/Videoconferencing server is used (BW –reduced)
• Integrated speech and video is sent from each participant reaches MCU which selects a
single information stream to send to each participant.
• When it detects a participant speaking, it sends that stream to all other participants. Only a
single two way comm channel between each location and the MCU is required.
• Internet supports multicasting- one PC to a predefined group of PCs. MCUs were not used
here. Here number of participants will be limited
Multimedia
• Three different types of electronic mail other than text only
Voice mail:
• Voice mail server is associated with each network.
• User enters a voice message addressed to a recipient
• Local voice mail server relays this to the voice server of the intended recipient network.
• When the recipient logs in to the mailbox next, the message is played out
• Video mail also works the same way – but with video and speech
Multimedia Mail
• Combination of all four media types
• MIME – Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions
• In case of speech and video, annotations can be sent either directly to mailbox of recipient with original text
message.
• Stored and played in a normal way/ played when the recipients reads out the text message and the recipient
terminal supports audio /video
Interactive Applications over
the Internet
• The most widely used for interactions over the internet is World Wide Web (WWW) or
Web server.
• This consists of linked set of multimedia information servers that are geographically
distributed around the internet.
• Each document consists of a linked set of pages and the linkage between the pages are
known as hyperlinks.
• Documents consisting of only text are created using hypertext and consisting of
multimedia information are created using hypermedia.
• Each document has a unique address known as Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
• The first page of the document is known as home page.
• A standard format is used for writing documents is known as Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML).
• The client function is called browser.
Entertainment Applications
Two types:
• Movie/ video – on demand
• Interactive television
• Movie/ video –on demand
• Video / audio applications need to be of much higher quality/resolution
since wide screen or stereophonic sound may be used.
• Min channel bit rate of 1.5 Mbps is used.
• Here a PSTN with high bit rate required / Cable network
• Digitized movies / videos are stored in servers.
• Subscriber end
• Conventional television
• Television with selection device for interactive purpose.
• Movie-on-demand /video-on-demand
• Control of playing of the movies can be taken like Video Cassette Recorder
• Any time – User’s choice
• This may result in concurrent access leading to multiple copies in the server
• This may add up to the cost
• Alternate method used is not play the movie immediately after request but defer till the next time
playout time. All request satisfied simultaneously by server outputting a single video stream. This
mode is known as near movie-on-demand or N-MOD.
• Viewer is unable to control the playout of the movie
• Formats of the files also play a significant role
Interactive Television
• Broadcast Television include cable, satellite and terrestrial networks.
• Diffusion of analog and digital television programs
• Set Top Box also has a modem within it
• Cable Networks- STB provides a low bit rate connection to PSTN as well requests and a
high bit rate connection to Internet or broadcasts
• An additional Keyboard, telephone can be connected to the STB to gain access to services.
• Interaction Television:
• Through the connection to PSTN, users were initially actively able to respond to the
information being broadcast.
• Return channels helped in voting, participation in games, home shopping etc.,
• STB in these networks require a high speed modem
Media Types
• The information flow associated with the different applications can be either
continuous or block mode.
Continuous media
• In the case of continuous media the information stream is generated by the source
continuously in a time dependent way.
• Therefore continuous media is passed directly to the destination as it is generated and
at the destination the information stream is played out directly as it is received. This
mode of operation is called streaming and since continuous media is generated in time
dependent way, it is also known as real time media.
Two examples of media types that generate continuous streams of information in real
time are audio and video.
• In terms of the bit rate at which the source information stream is generated can be
either a constant bit rate (CBR) or a variable bit rate (VBR)
• Block mode media
• In block mode media, the source information consists of a single block of
information
that is created in a time independent way.
Example: A block of text representing an email or computer program,
A two dimensional matrix of pixel values that represents an image
Block mode media is created in time independent way and is often stored and
displayed at a time determined by the requesting application program. This mode
of operation is known as down loading.
• When a block is requested, the delay between the request being made and the
contents of the block being displayed at the destination within an acceptable
time interval.
This known as round trip delay (RTD)
COMMUNICATION MODES
• The transfer of the information streams associated
with an application can be 1 of the 5 modes:
• Simplex: 1 direction only
• Half-duplex: flows in both directions but alternately
• Full-duplex: flows in both directions simultaneously
(1-to-1 transmission)
• Broadcast: 1-to-all transmission
• Multicast: 1-to-many transmission
• In duplex communications, if the bit rate associated
with flow of information in the 2 directions are
equal,
• the information flow is symmetric. Otherwise, it's
asymmetric
Network Types
• There are 2 types of communications channel associated with the
various network types: circuit-mode & packet-mode.
• Channels in circuit-mode:
Operates in a time-dependent way
Also known as a synchronous communications channel since it provides
a constant bit rate service.
• Channels in packet-mode:
Operates in a time-varying way
Also known as an asynchronous communications channel since it
provides a variable bit rate service
CIRCUIT-MODE:
• This type of network is also known as a
circuit switched network.
• A circuit-mode network comprises an
interconnected set of switching
offices/exchanges to which the
subscribers/computers are connected.
• Prior to sending any information, the
source must first set up a connection
through the network.
• The bit rate associated with the
connection is fixed.
• The messages associated with the
setting up and clearing of a connection
are known as signaling messages.
• There is a call/connection setup delay.
Packet mode