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Next Generation Multimedia Via the Internet
Content-rich, real-time multi-media over the Internet has long been the goal of system designers. Plagued by poor quality and jumpy images, video over the Net has remained an elusive dream for years. Now LG Electronics Institute of Technology of Korea has developed a new, flexible, stable, video-on-demand (VOD) software system that enables both content providers and viewers to interact with text, images, audio, and video smoothly and seamlessly over the Internet or an intranet.
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| System diagram shows the various components of the streaming video system |
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| User interface of encoder controller |
At the heart of this technology is a new way to use a kernel driver. In a typical computer system, the portion of the operating system that provides system-level commands, called a kernel driver, is used to access various devices. This enables computers to run faster by executing and displaying images in the same machine. The disadvantage to kernel-based systems is that it is difficult to share computer resources over a network. LG Electronics Institute of Technology has overcome this by incorporating in its VOD technology a kernel driver that doesn´t require user and kernel interaction.
The system is made up of three basic parts: server, player, and authoring tools.
Within the server there are two components: a stream server providing streams to the player via TCP/UDP & IP multicasting and a system management tool called a service gateway which provides browsing streams stored in the stream server. Using a kernel driver on the server-side of a real-time streaming engine, LG Electronics Institute of Technology eliminates the need for multiple stream copies and interactions between the user and kernel mode. This enables the system to be configured simply by any computer using popular web browsers such as Microsoft´s Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator without requiring system management tools. System administrators are able to manage content via web pages.
The player portion also has two components: a stream player and SMIL player. SMIL stands for "Synchronized Multimedia Integrated Language" a layout language used in creating Web-based multimedia presentations that synchronizes the delivery and presentation of multimedia data to the viewer. The player section incorporates ActiveX technology, enabling viewers to access content through web pages using VCR-like operations, including section repeat, fast forward, and rewind.
The third part, authoring tools, has five components:
- Courseware editor for HTML browser to support browsing, file uploading, and previewing
- Stream index generator to create index information and aid viewers in identifying content
- Key frame extractor, allowing key frames within a stream to be selected and extracted
- SMIL Composer, enabling content providers to create synchronized multimedia documents incorporating a combination of text, still images, audio, and video
- Encoder, to create the final viewing files
What makes this new technology so exciting is its ability to deliver smooth, real-time, content-rich, multimedia capabilities over the Internet or an intranet with broadcast quality. Ideal for advertising and education (both as a distance learning and in-house corporate educational tool) this new VOD system is perfect for universities, museums, government agencies, and private companies looking to use a broadcasting tool to reach a large audience without the expense or complexity of a stand-alone network.
