Chris Adie
Winter 1993
© EUCS/RARE Project.

2. Research

Project name:
(none)SRI/ETRI

Funding body:
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) (KR)

Participants:
SRI International (US)
ETRI (KR)
Samsung
Lucky Gold Star
DaeWoo

Timescale:
January 1991 to April 1994

Project aims:
To develop an Integrated Multimedia User Interface for the Intelligent Computer, InCom

Description:
Integrated Multimedia I/O Interface (MuX) for Intelligent Computing

Standards used:
RTP (modified version), MPEG, JPEG (with a non-standard hierarchical compression extension), G.711, G721, H.261, MIDI

Papers/reports:
"A Multimedia Data Processing Model for a Distributed Multimedia I/O System", R. Baker et. al., Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Networking and Operating System Support for Digital Audio and Video, San Diego, November 1992. "A Synchronization and Integration Model for Audio, Video, and Time-Based Graphics Multimedia", D. Kim et. al., Proceedings of the 2nd Pacific Rim International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Vol. II, p1093. "MuX: An X Co-Existent, Time-Based Multimedia I/O Server", E. Rennison et. al., X Technical Conference Proceedings, January 1992.

Contact point:
Earl Rennison (rennison@erg.sri.com)
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park
CA 94025
USA
Phone:+1 415 859 5201
Fax:+1 415 859 4812

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
(none)Lancaster/ICI

Funding body:
ICI plc (GB)

Participants:
University of Lancaster (GB)
ICI plc (GB)

Timescale:
Commenced January 1991

Project aims:
To investigate in detail the capabilities of emerging distributed and multimedia technologies.
To carry out an in-depth investigation of existing multimedia applications.
To interact with end users (within ICI) to determine areas of exploitation of distributed and multimedia technology.
To develop a target application as a result of the previous investigations to demonstrate a potential useful exploitation of multimedia technology.

Description:
Formal title: "Multimedia Applications: User Requirements and Technology Support"
A broad study of the current state of the art in multimedia applications and technology has been conducted. This study, in conjunction with the results of interaction with end-users in ICI has led to the identification of a number of possible application areas.Work is now progressing to explore each of these areas in more detail.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry:
21 December 1992

Project name:
AthenaMuse 2

Funding body:
AthenaMuse Software Consortium

Participants:
About 15 industrial, academic and government members

Timescale:
Commenced 1992
First public release scheduled for January 1994.

Project aims:
To convert the research agenda and experience of AthenaMuse 1 into an extensible object-oriented software environment of industrial calibre.

[The aim of AthenaMuse 1 was "to provide an flexible, powerful, and friendly prototype multimedia authoring environment based upon multiple application paradigms".]

Description:
The AthenaMuse Software Consortium is an industrially sponsored research and development consortium at MIT. The goal of the Consortium is to produce an authoring environment for creating distributed, multimedia computing applications.This group is part of the MIT Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI).It builds directly on the extensive research in multimedia computing done by Project Athena's Visual Computing Group (VCG).The staff of the Consortium consists of former members of the VCG, participants from the sponsoring companies and new MIT CECI staff members.

The Consortium targets near-term, pre-competitive technologies that will enable the delivery of multimedia software.Existing standards are used when possible, and new, de facto standards established when necessary. Fully functional reference implementations are developed that are sufficiently robust to be widely used and evaluated by MIT and industrial participants. Companies that join the Consortium receive royalty-free rights to the software, and are encouraged to commercialise it.

Multimedia addresses a broad spectrum of markets and will make use of many near-term technologies. In this regard, the following technologies are expected to be widely available to workstations within the next five years:

The research undertaken by the Consortium centres on three major tasks:

This effort will ensure that the multimedia-enabling software developed by the Consortium will be consistent with open systems standards, will be available to MIT computing initiatives both present and future, and will have sufficiently diverse industrial support to have an impact on international multimedia computing.Co-operative arrangements already in place with the Smithsonian Institution, Bibliotheque de France, Harvard's Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments, and other institutions and universities pursuing near-term solutions to multimedia development, will be maintained and extended.The combination of multi-vendor, industrial sponsorship and ties to major institutions that use multimedia computing, as well as the Consortium's ongoing relationships with other universities, offer the prospect that the merged effort will create a de facto standard for multimedia computing.

Standards used:
Still under discussion.AM 2 will definitely employ/support: DVI, JPEG, and the QuickTime Movie format.Other media and document formats are under consideration.

Papers/reports:
"The AthenaMuse 2 Functional Specification", CECI(MIT) Report, May 1992.

"The AthenaMuse2 Architecture", CECI(MIT) Report, August 1992.

The preceding AthenaMuse 1 project is documented in the reports below:

Contact point:
Judson Harward (jud@ceci.mit.edu)
Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
BERKOM (Berlin Communication System)

Funding body:
DBP Telekom (DE)
Berlin Senate (1986-1991) (DE)
participating industrial enterprises

Participants:
Apple Computer GmbH
Apple Deutschland GmbH
Alcatel SEL
Linotype-Hell AG
PAC Technology GmbH
Universitaet des Saarlandes
Axel Springer Verlag AG
Burda GmbH
U.E. Sebald Druck und Verlag GmbH
ART+COM Forschungs- und Entwicklungszentrum fuer rechnergestuetztes Gestalten und Darstellen e.V.
Technische Universitaet Berlin
Fraunhofer Institut fuer Graphische Datenverarbeitung
Media Port Berlin GmbH
BERCOS GmbH
Communications Broadband Multimedia Inc. (US)
Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin
Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG
Du Pont de Nemours Bad Homburg GmbH
Siemens AG Unternehmensbereich KWU
Robert Bosch GmbH
Digital Equipment GmbH
CEC
IBM Deutschland GmbH
ENC
Liebing&Ullfors EDV Programmentwicklung GmbH
Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD)
MC Telecommunication Consulting GmbH
Magirus Datentechnik GmbH
FAST-Electronic
Logibyte
NETFOX GmbH
OPTIBASE Inc. (US)
3V Multimedia
eps Bertelsmann GmbH
Fernuniversitaet Hagen
PrePrint Publishing Consulting GmbH
Hewlett Packard GmbH
Sietec Systemtechnik GmbH u. Co. OHG
Lufthansa Informationstechnik und Software GmbH (LIS)
Institut fuer Zukunftsstudien und Technologiebewertung
Universitaet Stuttgart

Timescale:
1986 to 1992.Due to organisational changes, BERKOM changed its project status to an unlimited work programme from January 1993 and is now a company: De.Te.Berkom GmbH.

Project aims:
To promote the development of telecommunication services and end-systems for Broadband-ISDN or IBCN (Integrated Broadband Communication Network)

Description:
In order to achieve the aim of BERKOM, issues related to network architecture, new applications, techniques and end systems for multimedia communication have been elaborated. The BERKOM programme consists of approximately 60 different projects involving the main computer manufacturers, user groups, the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom and research institutions in Berlin, elsewhere in Germany and abroad. In realising the programme two main objectives could be distinguished. On the one hand broadband services applications have been realised in application projects and on the other hand contributions to the definition of a Reference Model for integrated (narrow- and broadband) telecommunication services have been elaborated. This procedure has been supported by innovative methods of market studies, aiming at the identification of possible potential demand for broadband communication and its priorities.

The BERKOM Reference Model was the basis for identifying, structuring, classifying and modelling the required software and hardware components for the development of multimedia end systems and applications. It is based on the architectural principles of the ISO OSI Reference Model.While the OSI model focuses mainly on point-to point communication between functionally equivalent entities, the BERKOM Reference Model develops additional concepts and mechanisms for the co-operation of diverse functional entities to provide a framework for the development of autonomous co-operative applications.New results from ISO/CCITT standardisation work have been included in the model.

The work on the Berkom Reference Model has been carried out by all project partners and has been proposed for international standardisation (CCITT/OSI) by the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom. The application projects have mainly been concerned with the following areas: Telepublishing, Video Communication, Broadband Information Systems, Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) and Multimedia Document Communication.

An essential task within the BERKOM working programme is the realisation of the BERKOM service concept by providing multimedia workstations for office communication.Technical components have been developed which are applicable for TV and video communication terminals and office terminal.

The BERKOM test network is a B-ISDN network based on fibre-optic infrastructure.The core network is based on two STM switches offering subscriber channels of up to 140 Mbit/s. In 1989 an ATM switch was introduced in the core network as well.Interworking units (IWUs) and network adapter cards have been developed.The IWUs have been developed to permit the connection of LAN types like Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI to the BERKOM test network.The adapter cards have been developed to connect computer systems with standard busses (eg VME, AT, Microchannel) to the test network.

The work programme up to the end of 1994 focuses on the development of a common communication- and service platform based on the Reference Model . The activities related to the communication platform comprise adaptation to local network islands spread over Germany, intraworking within the islands as well as interworking between the islands. In addition to the LANs already connected to the BERKOM test network, local ATM is being introduced. As long as public ATM connections are not available, the VBN will be used for interconnection of islands. Interworking will be achieved through the use of one common protocol stack, which takes the new techniques of ATM based B-ISDN into account while offering communication functionality well suited to multimedia services. The service platform will offer to the multimedia applications two Multimedia teleservices, namely Multimedia Mail and Multimedia Collaboration. Both platforms are being realised on multi-vendor equipment. While the activities within the last years have been more research oriented, the later commercial establishment is now one important aspect as well.

Standards used:
In the Berkom Reference Model and within the RACE project ESP (R1091) the standards which were expected to be the most applicable to multimedia communication via the Berkom Test Network have been studied and recommended. It was up to the projects which of the standards were to be used. For further information refer to [5] below.

Papers/reports:
The most important papers describing the Berkom Reference Model and the Berkom projects are listed below. For further information the reader is referred to the contact point.

  1. BERKOM Reference Model: Application-Oriented Layers.Version 4.0.1 - December 1992
  2. BERKOM Reference Model: Lower Layers.Version 2.0 - February 1991
  3. Evaluation of Existing Communication Standards and Mapping on Requirement Analysis (upper layers).RACE-Project 1091 (91/DTC/ESP/DS/A/001/b1) June 1990
  4. Specification of Protocol Profiles Based on Existing Standards (lower layers).RACE-Project 1091 (91/DTC/ESP/DS/A/002/b1) May 1991
  5. "BERKOM Broadband Communication within the Optical Fibre Network", H. Ricke and J. Kanzow (Ed.) 1992, ISBN 3-7685-1392-0
  6. The BERKOM Multimedia Collaboration Teleservice, Release 2.0, October 1992
  7. The BERKOM Multimedia Mail Teleservice, Release 2.0, October 1992
  8. The BERKOM Multimedia Transport System, Release 2.0, October 1992

Contact point:
DETECON Technisches Zentrum Berlin
Voltastra.e 5
D-1000 Berlin 65
Germany
Phone:+49 30 467010
Fax:+49 30 46701444

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
CAR

Funding body:

Participants:
University College London (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:

Description:
A multimedia conferencing environment intended for use in the car industry has been built. It allows sharing of both custom-built and unmodified X applications. Shared pointers are provided so that all participants can see the entity being indicated by the floor holder. Audio is provided by n-1 way mixing and video is switched automatically as the floor holder changes.

The system has been used for a number of demonstrations and for a collaborative authoring exercise.It is now being adapted to provide digital audio and video support, and being used in a series of three evaluation exercises, which will include interworking with designers in Europe.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
J Crowcroft (J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk)
Department of Computer Science
University College London
London
Great Britain

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
CIO (Co-ordination, Implementation & Operation of Multimedia Services)

Funding body:
RACE Programme (Commission of the European Community)

Participants:
DETECON Technisches Zentrum Berlin (DE)
ACOTEC GmbH (DE)
Ascom Tech Ltd. (CH)
Centro de Estudos de Telecomunicacoes (P)
DBP TELEKOM and Affiliates (FTZ) (DE)
Eidgenossische TH Zurich (CH)
Gesellschaft fur Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (DE)
INTERSIS Automacao, s.a. (PT)
Media Port Berlin GmbH (DE)
Norwegian Telecom Research (NO)
Royal PTT Nederland NV (NL)
SIEMENS AG (DE)
SIEMENS AS (NO)
Technische Universitat Berlin (DE)
TELEFONICA (ES)
Universitat Stuttgart (DE)
Universitat Ulm (DE)
Universitat de Liege (BE)

Timescale:
January 1992 to December 1994

Project aims:
To specify and implement prototypes of two advanced multimedia teleservices: a Multimedia Messaging Service; and a Joint Viewing and Tele-Operation Service.

Description:
Two advanced multimedia teleservices: a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMMS - ie electronic mail) and a Joint-Viewing and Tele-Operation Service (JVTOS) are specified and prototyped on various end systems.In this context, "teleservices" refer to distributed multimedia applications provided in a unified form on a variety of system platforms to a large user community - akin to traditional telephone or telex services.

The teleservices are based on a communication platform which encompasses:

Besides ATM as the basic switching technology for future IBC, the selected IBC islands will incorporate FDDI as backbone for Ethernet LANs.After a possible later interconnection of IBC islands by means of transparent links provided by PNOs as a publicly available service, the common teleservices, based on the common communication platform, will enable end-users to communicate trans-nationally without any change in the end systems or in the underlying network technology.

Papers/reports:
Reports (October 1992):

Published papers (October 1992):

"Offene Kommunikation in Europa (Netze, Protokolle, Datenstrukturen) - Projekte der Europaischen Gemeinschaften", IIR - Konferenz 'Open Systems Interconnection', Koln, November 1991

"Synchronization of Multimedia Data Streams in Open Distributed Environments", 2nd International Workshop on 'Network and Operating System Support for Digital Audio and Video' Heidelberg, November 1991

"The RACE Project CIO", Proceedings of the IWACA '92 Munich, March 1992

"Esprit Project OSI95 New Transport Services for High Speed Networking", 3rd Joint European Networking Conference, Innsbruck (Computer Networks and ISDN), May 1992

"Design and Implementation of a Mobile-Access Systems to X.400-Services", IFIP WG6.5 Conference on 'Upper Layer Protocols, Architecture and Applications', Vancouver, May 1992

"Advanced Multimedia Services in Communication Networks", Proceedings of 10th Ann. EFOC/LAN '92 Conference Paris, June 1992

"Comparison of TP4, TCP and XTP - Part 2: Data Transfer Mechanisms", European Transactions on Telecommunications, December 1992

"JVTOS - A Reference Model for a New Multimedia Service", Submitted to the 4th IFIP Conference on High Performance Networking, Liege, December 1992

Contact point:
Wulf Bauerfeld (bauerfeld@tz-berlin.detecon.dbp.de)
DETECON Technisches Zentrum Berlin
Voltastr. 5
D-1000 Berlin 65
Phone:+49 30 46701 310
Fax:+49 30 46701 445

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
CoMMedia (Co-operation, Communication and Multimedia)CoMMedia

Funding body:
Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Norwegian Telecom Research

Participants:
UNINETT (NO)
University of Oslo (NO)
University of Bergen (NO)
University of Trondheim (NO)
University of Tromso (NO)
Ostfold Regional College (NO)
Norwegian Computing Centre (NO)
SI (NO)
SINTEF (NO)
FORUT (NO)

Timescale:

Preliminary phase:
June 1992 to March 1994
Main project commences April 1994 for at least 2 years

Project aims:
To develop distributed multimedia demonstrators.

Description:
Multipart Classroom/Meeting Room.This activity shall develop a prototype for support of distant education and distributed meeting rooms. A bilateral connection is already established between the University of Oslo and the university studies at Kjeller (based on the H.261 protocol). A national infrastructure will be realised to support bilateral and multilateral communication between the universities and the other participants in CoMMedia.

Joint Editing.A joint editing system will be developed. It will be based on the Global Window system developed by the Norwegian Computing Centre.

Multimedia Post.Experiments on exchanging ODA documents over X.400 have already taken place.Since ODA still has limited functionality, development of a MIME based user agent is planned.

Multimedia Library.There exists several library and information services providing access to textual information via computer networks. CoMMedia aims towards giving access to images, audio and video material.

Multimedia Newspapers.Norway is the land of newspaper readers. CoMMedia will aim towards giving interactive access to news via computer networks.

Multimedia Home Office.This activity is aiming towards giving multimedia support to small offices and home offices which do not have high capacity network access.

Standards used:
Not yet decided, but may include H.261, X.400, MIME, DVI, MPEG.

Papers/reports:
A Norwegian report "MultiTeam Infrastructure" exists. A paper has been submitted to JENC4 (Trondheim 1993).

Contact point:
Rune Hjelsvold (Rune.Hjelsvold@idt.unit.no)
UNINETT multimedia co-ordinator

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
DARPA Remote ConferencingDARPA Remote Conferencing

Funding body:
Funded by the participants.Research is co-ordinated by the IETF Remote Conferencing Working Group.(There is also a separate Audio/Video Transport Working Group.)

Participants:
Numerous, including:
AT&T (US)
INRIA (FR)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US)
LBL (US)
MCNC Centre for Communications (US)
MIT (US)
UCL (GB)
Xerox PARC (US)

Timescale:
Commenced March 1992

Project aims:
To bring remote conferencing over the Internet to a reality.
To produce a complete end-to-end open architecture for remote conferencing on the Internet.

Description:
The remote conferencing architecture is intended to address both the workstation and conference room environments and, in addition to video and audio, will cover other media commonly used in local conferencing such as data, text, still images and CD-ROM.

The architecture will address both "tightly-controlled" n-to-n conferences (where n <= about 15) and "loosely-controlled" 1-to-n conferences (where n < infinity).It is intended that the architecture should be capable of implementation on PC-class machines as well as powerful workstations.

The work so far has used IP Multicast extensions.The "vat" audio conferencing tool and the "nv" and "ivs" video tools are utilised and refined through this research.IETF meetings and specialist workshops have been broadcast on the Internet using these tools, and the experience gained with these experiments is informing debate on the interaction between remote conferencing traffic and other traffic on the Internet.

Architecture and protocols for conference control form an important part of this research, using tools such as the Session Directory "sd".All the above-mentioned tools are documented in the Products section of this survey.

The target date for a completed basic remote conferencing architecture is March 1993.

Standards used:
H.261, RTP, IP Multicast

Papers/reports:
"Charter of the Audio/Video Transport Working Group", S. Casner, IETF, Santa Fe, November 1991.

"Charter of Remote Conferencing Working Group", J. Drescher and A. Ollikainen, IETF, Boston, 1992.

"Real Time Multimedia Communications Architecture (Draft)", Y. H. Chang, November 1992.

Contact point:
J. Drescher (drescher@concert.net)
Co-chair, IETF Remote Conferencing Working Group
MCNC Centre for Communications
3021 Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park
NC 27709
USA

A. Ollilkainen (ari@es.net)
Co-chair, IETF Remote Conferencing Working Group
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Mailing list: rem-conf@es.net
List archive: nic.es.net:[anonymous.ietf.rem-conf]

There is a separate mailing list for conference control/management issues: confctrl@isi.edu.

Date of entry:
13 December 1992

Project name:
DEMON (Delivery of Electronic Multimedia Over the Network)

Funding body:

Participants:
Bellcore (US)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To investigate the network requirements of near-term residential multimedia services.

Description:
The project is designing and implementing an experimental application which serves the needs of casual multimedia users.To this end, it is concentrating on three areas:

Standards used:
JPEG, MPEG, H.261

Papers/reports:
"Multimedia Communications for Users", J. Rosenberg et. al., IEEE Communications, May 1992.*DDE_LINK133*DDE_LINK132

"Presenting Multimedia Documents Over a Digital Network", J. Rosenberg, G. Cruz and T. Judd, Computer Communications, July/August, 1992 (also available in Proceedings of Second International Workshop on Network & Operating System Support for Digital Audio & Video,November, 1992, Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.)

"A Real-time Publishing Model: Network Delivery of Multimedia Documents", G. Cruz et. al., Proceedings of EDD '92: A Vehicle for Change October 13-15, 1992, Parsippany, NJ.

"Requirements for Network Delivery of Stored Interactive Multimedia", D. New et. al., Proceedings of Third International Workshop on Network & Operating System Support for Digital Audio & Video, November 12-13, 1992, San Diego, CA: Springer-Verlag.

Contact point:
Jonathan Rosenberg (jxr@thumper.bellcore.com)

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
EuroBridge

Funding body:
Commission of the European Community

Participants:
RWTH Aachen (DE)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To find flexible communication structures for distributed multimedia applications.

Description:

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Wilko Reinhardt (wilko@informatik.rwth-aachen.de)
Lehrstuhl f. Informatik,
RWTH Aachen,
Ahornstr. 55.
Germany
Fax:+49 241 80 21429

Date of entry:18 January 1993

Project name:
HeiProjects

Funding body:
IBM

Participants:
IBM European Networking Centre, Heidelberg (DE)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To develop prototype multimedia system components that are intended to co-operate, but can also be used in other environments.
To investigate the right function set for potential future IBM products in the area of multimedia support.

Description:
The HeiProjects are (a collection of sub-projects) aimed at providing a universal multimedia platform for networked workstations.This platform shall be used to support distributed multimedia applications, eg for collaborative working support or multimedia mail exchange.Its core component is a multimedia transport system that permits the exchange of multimedia data with end-to-end performance guarantees over a variety of underlying networks with different degrees of multimedia support.

A toolkit which encompasses a set of basic multimedia services for constructing distributed multimedia applications is being designed.Whereas the transport system is responsible for real-time data transfer, the toolkit provides service elements to organise and control communication.

Examples of services which the architecture is designed to support include audiovisual conferencing and video-on-demand services.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
"The HeiProjects: An Updated Survey", R. G. Herrtwich, October 1992.

Contact point:
Ralf Herrtwich
IBM European Networking Center
Tiergartenstr. 8
D-6900 Heidelberg 1
Germany

Date of entry:
21 January 1993

Project name:
ISLE/EVAN

Funding body:
DEC
Heriot-Watt University (GB)

Participants:
Heriot-Watt University (GB)

Timescale:
Commenced April 1992 for up to 3 years

Project aims:
To build an Intensively Supported Learning Environment.
To identify the technology requirements for computer-based distance learning.
To identify the characteristics of learning materials and how these map to computer multimedia forms.
To determine the place of video and other conferencing forms in distance learning.

Description:
This project is in two sections - ISLE, which is concerned with investigating computer-based learning environments from an education pedagogy viewpoint; and EVAN, which is concerned with distance learning issues.EVAN is of more relevance as a "client" for distributed multimedia capabilities.

The ISLE project is developing an interactive multimedia learning environment, initially based on the NESTOR multimedia toolkit from the Universities of Karlsruhe and of Kaiserslautern (Germany), and targeted on the DECAthena distributed computing environment (a distributed UNIX environment) and eventually for the PC/Windows environment.

The EVAN project concentrates on three entities: (i) services, (ii) subscribers, and (iii) access.Services will be learning based services, provided by Universities or other institutions offering distance learning materials to subscribers such as students.Access is provided by data and communications networks.The EVAN project is less concerned with the underlying transport mechanism, more with the way in which multimedia can help distance learning applications build towards providing a classroom environment to the remote student who wishes to learn on an as-needed basis.

The project is interested in both the Campus-based student (such as found in Universities) and the true distance learning student.The latter may comprise the bulk of the potential customer base for distance learning.The geographically-dispersed character of this customer base suggests that ISDN, as a potentially widely available method of network access, will be a very relevant underlying network technology.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Terry Mayes (cbltm@clust.hw)
Heriot-Watt University
Riccarton
Edinburgh
Great Britain

Date of entry:
10 December 1992

Project name:
JIPS Videoconferencing

Funding Body:
Joint Network Team (GB)

Participants:
University College London (GB)

Timescale:
1992

Project aims:
To determine the feasibility of establishing small-scale video conferencing over the JANET IP Service (JIPS).

Description:
This project involved the transmission of simulated H.261 video traffic at rates from 64 kbit/s to 256 kbit/s using UDP over JIPS, with University College London as the source and Cambridge as a sink, and later with Edinburgh as a source and Cambridge as a sink.The tests measured the distribution of inter-pocket arrival times and the packet loss rate.

Further work is planned using real video signals encoded with H.261.

Standards used:
H.261

Papers/reports:
"A Short Summary of the Initial Results Obtained on px64 kbit/s Data Transmission over JIPS", S. Hailes, UCL.

Contact point:
Jon Crowcroft (J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk)
Department of Computer Science
University College London
London
Great Britain

Date of Entry:
1 December 1992

Project name:
JITOL (Just In Time Open Learning)

Funding Body:
DELTA programme (Commission of the European Community)

Participants:
Logica (UK)
DEC(GB)
DEC (FR)
Lancaster University (CSALT, CSET and Comp. Sci.) (GB)
NeuropeLab (project managers) (FR)
Norwegian Ministry Of Education (NO)
RIKS (NL)
University of Trondheim (NO)
University of Geneva (CH)
University of Lisbon (PT)

Timescale:
3 years

Project aims:

Description:
The project is a study of a novel collaborative learning technique called just-in-time open learning. The main feature of this is that the learner works with peers to acquire knowledge from learning resources such as MM documents, courses and experts.The resource base is expected to be modified by the learners and to evolve into more useful forms.The JITOL project will look at supporting jitol over wide area networks spread across several European countries.There will be large-scale user trials in three subject domains: commerce, education and medicine; as well as a number of small-scale trials.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Graham Storrs (ges@logcam.co.uk)

Date of Entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
Libernet.91

Funding body:
Pacific Bell (US)

Participants:
Pacific Bell (US)

Timescale:
Commenced 1990

Project aims:
To develop a prototype library of multimedia books.

Description:
The Libernet.91 system provides a network of Apple Macintosh computers with access to a library of multimedia books.Audio and video is carried over separate wiring controlled by an analog switch.The development focused on solving problems using existing tools where possible - using the Aldus SuperCard object-oriented database, for example.

The system software consists of four programs:

The project was initiated in the spirit of "scruffy science" - concentrating on getting a working system going in minimal time.
Future work will concentrate on:

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
"Accessing Multimedia Network Services", K. H. Smith Jr., IEEE Communications Magazine, p72, May 1992

Contact point:

Date of entry:
25 January 1993

Project name:
MADE (Multimedia Application Demonstration Environment)

Funding body:
British Telecom plc (GB)

Participants:
BT Research Laboratories (GB)
University of Kent (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To demonstrate the value of multimedia communications to both BT and their customers.

Description:
This project centres on the use of MHEG to access a multimedia object server.The platform for the server is a Sun SPARCstation with an object-oriented database package (ONTOS).Audio, video, text and graphical data types are covered.

Kent University is working on a sub-project: "Multi-user Indexing in a Distributed Multimedia Database".

Standards used:
MHEG, JPEG, JBIG, MPEG

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Darryl Morgan
Research Laboratories
Martlesham Heath
Ipswitch
IP5 7RE
Great Britain
Phone:+44 473 643396

Date of entry:
22 December 1992

Project name:
MCRL (Multimedia Communications Research Lab)

Funding Bodies:
Telecommunications Research Institute of Ontario (CA)
Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research (CA)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (CA)

Participants:
BNR
Northern Telecom
Bell Canada
Telesat Canada

Timescale:
Commenced 1984
IRIS project: 1988 to 1991(Multimedia Radiology Information System)
MEDIABASE project 1989 to 1995

Project aims:
To develop test beds for Multimedia applications.
To develop and study the performance of Multimedia Distributed Information Systems.

Description:
MCRLab, located at the University of Ottawa, is comprised of three co-operating research teams focused on the transport, coding and implementation of Multimedia Communications for Co-operative Work. Each team is identified in a short summary of research activities below.

The Networks, Protocols and Performance group focuses its research efforts on multimedia broadband communications and high speed network protocols. This group examines network performance, congestion, conferencing and message synchronisation. In the area of synchronisation, efforts have been focused on simultaneous real-time data delivery and temporal presentation control.

The Image and Video Coding and Processing group examines issues related to progressive image transmission and is involved in the design and development of algorithms and architectures for video compression.

The Multimedia Database and Distributed Systems Group focuses its research efforts on the development of a multimedia real-time distributed information system.MEDIABASE is a project on multimedia information systems with particular focus on document architecture, database models, high level communication protocols, distributed object-oriented environments and physical storage of multimedia information.
The MEDIABASE project consists of the following sub-projects:

The three groups collaborate in the development of large multimedia applications.Past projects have focused on distributed multimedia medical imaging applications.Present efforts are focused on a distributed multimedia real estate application.

Standards Used:
MIME, MPEG, JPEG, ODA, H.261, X.400

Papers/reports:
"Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory, Report of Activities: 1991 - 1992"

Contact Point:
Nicolas Georganas (nngpb@acadvm1.uottawa.ca)
Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory (MCRL)
Faculty of Engineering, University of Ottawa
Ottawa
Ontario
K1N-6N5
Canada
Phone: +1 613 564 8222
Fax: +1 613 564 7681

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
MIAS

Funding body:
Esprit (Commission of the European Community)

Participants:
Alcatel (FR)
Amper (ES)
BT Research Laboratories (GB)
CNET (FR)
CSELT (IT)
PTT Research (NL)
Telefonica (ES)

Timescale:
Commenced February 1989

Project aims:
To study the necessary features and protocols needed for multipoint multimedia communication.

Description:
A Multipoint Interactive audiovisual System (MIAS) was developed.The system's audiovisual terminal consists of specialised hardware attached to an ISDN line (2B+D channels) incorporating a video input connector and H.261 codec, and a G.722 codec and associated audio I/O circuitry.Video display is in a window on a PC (running MS Windows).The PC is also used for conference control and for file transfer.

Lap B is used over H.221 for the lower layers.

Standards used:
G.722, H.261, H.221.

Papers/reports:
"Multipoint Multimedia Conferencing", W. J. Clark, IEEE Communications Magazine, p44, May 1992.

Contact point:
William J. Clark
Multipoint Teleconferencing Group
Research Laboratories
Martlesham Heath
Ipswitch
IP5 7RE
Great Britain

Date of entry:
25 January 1993

Project name:
MICE (Multimedia International Conferencing for European Researchers)

Funding body:
Esprit programme (Commission of the European Community)

Participants:
GMD
INRIA (FR)
Nottingham University (GB)
NTR
ONERA
SICS (SE)
Stuttgart University (DE)
ULB/VUB
University College London (prime contractor) (GB)
University of Oslo (NO)

Timescale:
Commenced December 1992

Project aims:
To provide appropriate multimedia, multi-party conferencing facilities to research workers in Europe, with links to North America; these to be provided across disciplines and ideally, usable by any research worker.
To design these facilities to interwork with those already deployed for other projects in the research community.
To provide the facilities in a form that would be appropriate to complement multi-party meetings so that one emphasis will be on conference rooms; workstations with reduced facilities will also be embraced.In both cases the facilities provided will include shared workspace use of workstations as well as video-conferencing.
To design the facilities to be deployable with minimal expenditure on communications and minimal delay, thus precluding the provision of a separate communications network.
To use the emerging European infrastructure of international connections between National Packet Switched Networks (Europanet and EBONE inside Europe, and the different links to the US from Europe)

Description:
The project is planned for completion in 12 months. It will consist of three overlapping phases: definition, trials and evaluation. During the definition phase, a multimedia conferencing reference architecture will be defined; thereafter the exact facilities to be provided in conferencing rooms, conferencing workstations and a Conference Multiplexing and Management Centre will be specified.

During the trials phase, the facilities of all three areas will be improved progressively and put into limited service. During the evaluation phase, the strengths and weaknesses of the facilities will be assessed, forecasts will be made on the timing of more economic equipment and more appropriate algorithms, and recommendations will be made for the deployment of an operational system. The timescale is only achievable, within the limited effort proposed, because the project will be based heavily on existing developments funded under other programmes.

It is intended that the fourinitial sites should be connected within the first four months of the project.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Jon Crowcroft (J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk)
Department of Computer Science
University College London
London
Great Britain

Date of entry:21 December 1992

Project name:
MNI

Funding body:
SERC (GB)
BT Research Laboratories (GB)

Participants:
University of Lancaster (GB)

Timescale:
Commenced August 1989

Project aims:
To design an experimental multimedia network interface based on transputers.
To experiment with integrated channel methods, and communications services and protocols for multimedia traffic.
To develop a model of an integrated channel interface between a multimedia workstation and a multi-service network, compatible with OSI and ODP.

Description:
A survey of existing ISO protocols has been carried out, and a number of additional multimedia requirements have been identified. A basic transputer based network switch has been developed and implemented and a prototype multimedia workstation with a transputer based enhancement unit has been built. A dynamically reconfigurable transport layer protocol which meets the additional requirements of multimedia data has been designed. An initial implementation of this protocol to run on the transputer based prototype multimedia workstations is currently under test.

The first implementation of a network protocol emulator has also been completed and tests are being carried out to verify its accuracy.This first emulation is of a FDDI network. Additionally, work has begun on the development of a transputer based storage server for stream data.This storage server will provide services to the prototype multimedia workstations via the network protocol emulator, using the transport protocol developed.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry:
21 December 1992

Project name:
MOST (Mobile Open Systems Technologies for the Utilities Industries)

Funding body:
SERC/DTI ODSA programme (GB)

Participants:
University of Lancaster (GB)
EA Technology, Chester (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:

Description:
MOST is a two year project focusing on the application of Open Distributed Processing in the utilities industries.One of the key features of the utilities industries is the need to access a wide range of information in the field.However, this introduces a number of technical challenges for ODP:

The MOST project will address these technical issues and will develop an ODP-based distributed systems platform, which integrates mobile communications, a range of information services (including a GeographicInformationSystem) and multimedia capabilities.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
Multi G

Funding Body:

Participants:
Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) (SE)
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) (SE)
Ellemtel Development Company (SE)
Swedish Telecom (SE)

Timescale:
1990 to 1993

Project aims:
To strengthen academic infrastructure.
To increase competitive strength of industry.
To integrate SICS and KTH research environments.
To demonstrate gigabit networking.
To demonstrate gigabit applications.

Description:
One of the activities is investigating the use of ST-2 over ATM.SICS have successfully demonstrated ST-2 over ATM between two workstations with ATM interfaces directly connected.They have written their own ST-2 implementation (about 6500 lines of C code in the UNIX kernel).

Standards used:
ST-2

Papers/reports:
"An Implementation of the Revised Internet Stream Protocol (ST-2)", C. Partridge and S. Pink, Journal of Internetworking: Research and Experience, March 1992.

Contact point:
Stephen Pink (steve@sics.se)
Distributed Systems Lab
Swedish Institute of Computer Science

Date of Entry:
1 December 1992

Project name:
Multimedia RPC

Funding body:

Participants:

Timescale:
Commenced April 1991

Project aims:
To extend the design of remote procedure call protocols to encompass real time, multimedia transmissions.
To implement the extended RPC on a pre-existing multimedia distributed system consisting of a high speed network emulator and multimedia workstations.
To provide input to the various standards bodies (particularly ODP) with regard to multimedia RPC engineering support for object based computational models.

Description:
Formal title: "Engineering Support for Remote Procedure Calls in Multimedia Environments"

The first deliverable from this project is now complete. This comprises a survey of RPCs and RPC-like mechanisms, with input from current and past research on remote procedure calls (RPCs), RPC-like mechanisms, distributed operating systems, bulk data transfer, multimedia communication requirements and transport protocols. The suitability of RPCs for multimedia communications is now being assessed, and a number of recommendations are being prepared. Based on these recommendations it is hoped to build and evaluate a prototype multimedia RPC.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry:
21 December 1992

Project name:
MUMS

Funding body:

Participants:
LUTCHI Research Centre, Loughborough University (GB)
Queen Mary and Westfield College, London (GB)

Timescale:
January 1990 to December 1993

Project aims:
To develop an application framework to support the development of group-working applications.
To develop a group-working and a multimedia interaction model.

Description:
MUMS is taking a user-centred approach to group-working.An application framework is under development, which is informed by a model of group-working and a model of multimedia interaction.The application framework will provide a software infrastructure to assist in the construction of group-working applications. The framework will implement an architecture developed from a User Interface Management System and extended for group-working as advised by the models. The group-working model will take into account the way users interact with each other as well as with the task at hand.The multimedia interaction model will examine the use of different media to represent appropriate information to different users and to the group.The models will support the construction of group-working applications.The application domain of Spatial Planning, eg Architecture and Urban Planning, has been selected for the construction of a series of prototypes.

Macintosh and Sun SPARC workstations are used as the hardware base for this work.

Standards used:
QuickTime

Papers/reports:
"Negotiation Support in Design", E. A. Edmonds and R. M. Jones, Gero & Sudweeks (editors), Preprints of Artificial Intelligence in Design Workshop of IJCAI '91, University of Sydney, p93, 1991.

"An Analysis of Media Integration for Spatial Planning Environments", N. E. Branki, R. M. Jones and E. A. Edmonds,Timmermans (editor).Proc. Design & Decision Support Systems in Architecture and Urban Planning Conference. Eindhoven, July 1992.

"A Framework for Negotiation", R. M. Jones and E. A. Edmonds, Connolly & Edmonds (editors). Proc. CSCW, AI and Autonomous Agents, London, June 1992.

Contact point:
Rachel Jones (R.M.Jones@uk.ac.lut)
David Bell (bell@dcs.qmw.ac.uk)

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
OSI 95

Funding Body:
Esprit programme (Commission of the European Community)

Participants:
Alcatel-Bell-Telephone (BE)
Alcatel-Austria-Elin (AT)
Bull SA (FR)
Institut National des Telecommunications (FR)
Intracom SA (GR)
INRIA (FR)
Lancaster University (GB)
Olivetti Research Ltd (GB)
Universite de Liege (BE)
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (ES)

Timescale:
November 1990 to 1995

Project aims:
To design, specify and verify a transport and internet protocol (TPX) which will not jeopardise the potential bandwidth offered by the new environments created by HSLANs as well as by the MANs and soon by the broadband ISDN based on ATM.

To integrate high-speed MAN and WAN into the OSI reference model and to revise the OSI protocols of layers 3 to 7, in order to offer adequate high-performance services up to the application layer.

To define requirements of the associated computing environment with respect to multimedia, new distributed systems, and ODP.

Description:
Full title of project: "High Performance OSI Protocols with Multimedia Support on HSLANs and B-ISDN".

OSI 95 intends to revisit the OSI Reference Model from layer 2 up to the application level with one objective: the design of high-performance protocols for the new communication and application environments. The main effort will be invested in the design, formal specification and validation of a high performance protocol TPX, based on the standard LLC type 1 service and offering the standard transport connection mode. The project will introduce and support this protocol in various standardisation bodies.

Above the transport layer, the objective of the project is the study of the evolving computing environment in order to define more adequate application and transport services. Three elements of this environment have been identified: multimedia, new distributed systems and ODP. The effects of new applications which require the handling of multimedia objects, and the difficulties of supporting new distributed systems such as Esprit's COMANDOS will be studied in detail. In addition, an investigation will be conducted to ensure that duplication of functions such as location and replication transparency does not take place between the SE-ODP and the communication systems.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of Entry:
16 December 1992

Project name:
PACT (Packet-switched Adaptive Compressed Transmission of Images)

Funding Body:
SERC (GB)

Participants:
University College London (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:

Description:
PACT is looking at ways to use adaptive codecs for video (and audio) to adjust the compression parameters to adapt to conditions in the network. It is based on the use of a rate control algorithm to control admission and congestion in the network. This work is being carried out in collaboration with a major workstation manufacturer.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Jon Crowcroft (J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk)
Department of Computer Science
University College London
London
Great Britain

Date of Entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
Palantir

Funding Body:

Participants:
University of Kent (GB)
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To investigate the problems of modelling multimedia systems involving a range of technologies and qualities of service.
To test the suitability of the ISO Reference model for Open Distributed Processing as a basis for such systems.
To identify new requirements arising from new styles of multimedia application, particularly involving synchronisation of media.
To develop an application environment and assess the ease of remote access to it.

Description:
ISDN is used to link LANs at the two sites (KENT & RAL), with a "Model ATM Exchange" (MATMX), which manages n x 64 kbit/s channels to provide a single variable-rate data path.A video capture device is attached directly to the MATMX.

Video display in a workstation window is achieved by gating the video feed to a workstation display with the video signal transmitted from the remote video source.Special-purpose PC-controlled hardware is used for this purpose.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
Peter F. Linington (pfl@uka.ac.uk)
Computing Laboratory
University of Kent at Canterbury
Canterbury
Kent
CT2 7NF
Great Britain
Phone:+44 227 764000

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
Pegasus

Funding body:
Esprit (CEC)

Participants:
University of Twente (NL)
University of Cambridge (GB)

Timescale:
September 1992 to September 1996

Project aims:
To design and build a distributed storage service that can work on a world-wide scale, that provides arbitrarily high levels of reliability and availability, and that is capable of storing multimedia documents including digital video in real time.
To design and build the multimedia infrastructure that will allow such activities as video conferencing, multimedia document exchanges, multimedia communication, etc.
To design and build a demonstration application.

Description:
Pegasus is a project aimed at the design of an operating systems architecture for scalable distributed multimedia systems.

Distributed systems, multimedia, and developments in processor and memory technology are changing the way in which systems should be designed to such an extent that the systems technology in common use at university and in industry today is rapidly becoming inadequate.If one wishes to incorporate full-speed and high-quality digital audio and video in a distributed system, building one from the ground up is a necessity, because there are no systems around with sufficient support for high-performance, low-overhead soft real time.

The project team will design and build a prototype of the sort of system expected to be common in research environments by the year 2000.The primary goal of the project is "to do it right": to build a true distributed multimedia system that can scale to millions of nodes.Project activities include:

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
The Pegasus Technical Reports (and the list of currently available reports) can be obtained from University of Twente, address below.

Contact point:
Sape J. Mullender (mullender@cs.utwente.nl)
University of Twente
Faculty of Computer Science / SPA
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
Phone:+31 53 893 709
Fax:+31 53 309 723

Date of entry:
21 December 1992

Project name:
Plateau

Funding body:
Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, others

Participants:
University of California, Berkeley (US)

Timescale:
Commenced May 1992

Project aims:
To develop a distributed multimedia toolkit and applications.

Description:
Plateau is a research group rather than a single project.
The paper mentioned below describes an application built using a toolkit architecture that provides for best-effort delivery of multimedia data over conventional LANs using UDP.The network support is being extended to include RTIP, a real time network being developed at UC Berkeley by Domenico Ferrari (see Tenet entry in this survey).

The group has also developed and released a public domain MPEG decoder, and are developing a public domain MPEG encoder.These will be added to the application architecture described below.

Standards used:
JPEG, MPEG

Papers/reports:
"A Continuous Media Player", L. A. Rowe and B. C. Smith, Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Network and Operating System Support for Digital Audio and Video, San Diego, November 1992.Also available via FTP from toe.cs.berkeley.edu:/pub/multimedia.

Contact point:
Larry Rowe (Rowe@cs.berkeley.edu)
Brian Smith (bsmith@cs.berkeley.edu)

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
QOS-A (A Quality of Service Architecture for Multimedia Communications Systems)

Funding body:
SERC (GB)
Netcomm Ltd (GB)

Participants:
University of Lancaster (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To define a QOS Architecture that reconciles the User-oriented QOS requirements with the Network-oriented QOS environment for distributed multimedia applications.
To integrate this QOS-A into multi-service communications networks, in particular those based on ATM technology, in the context of a local ATM network that is being developed at Lancaster.
To demonstrate the applicability of the architecture in a small number of interactive real-time distributed multimedia application scenarios.
To introduce the results of the work into the Open Systems standardisation process (specifically the ISO New Work Item on QOS).

Description:
This project will develop a Quality of Service Architecture (QOS-A), encompassing communications and distributed systems support, in which QOS guarantees may be provided for interactive continuous media applications operating over multi-service networks.The QOS-A will provide integrated resource control, monitoring and regulation strategies necessary for the support of continuous media in broadband packet networks.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
Rapport

Funding body:

Participants:
AT&T

Timescale:

Project aims:

Description:
The Rapport multimedia conferencing system allows people to hold real-time discussions in which they share voice, video and program displays.It implements a "meeting room" metaphor, and is based on UNIX workstations.Rapport can manage calls with a mix of devices, including both computers and telephones.Rapport supports colour video conferencing.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
"Co-ordination and Control of Multimedia Conferencing", S. R. Ahuja and J. R. Esnor, IEEE Communications Magazine, p38, May 1992.

Contact point:

Date of entry:
25 January 1993

Project name:
SUMO (Support for Multimedia in Open Distributed Processing)

Funding body:
University of Lancaster (GB)

Participants:
University of Lancaster (GB)

Timescale:

Project aims:
To develop enhanced and integrated computational and engineering models to support multimedia, particularly continuous media such as digital video and audio, in an Open Distributed Processing environment.

Description:
The models will be verified by a prototype implementation based on the Chorus micro-kernel.The essence of the research is to support both Quality of Service (QOS) guarantees and real-time synchronisation as required by distributed multimedia applications.The research is also expected to contribute to the on-going developments of micro-kernel based architectures in the areas of real-time processing and multimedia support.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry: 18 January 1993

Project name:
TEMPO

Funding body:

Participants:
University of Lancaster (GB)
Research Laboratories (GB)
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (GB)

Timescale:
Commenced October 1990

Project aims:
To investigate the use of formal specification techniques (specifically LOTOS and LOTOS extensions) in the area of distributed multimedia systems architectures.
To consider techniques for the verification of real time properties of such systems.
To provide input into Open Distributed Processing (ODP) standards activities.

Description:

Formal title:
"Formal Support for the Specification and Construction of Distributed Multimedia Systems".

The TEMPO project is currently conducting a comparison of different timed formal description techniques, concentrating on timed extensions to LOTOS. These techniques are being evaluated for their suitability for specifying distributed multimedia systems. To enable this type of evaluation the project is looking closely at the requirements on models of time needed to specify such systems.

To allow validation of LOTOS specifications, the group have installed three toolkits: HIPPO, CAESAR/ALDEBARAN and TOPO.Both HIPPO andCAESAR/ALDEBARAN are regularly used in the development of specifications.However, if a timed extension to LOTOS is used, these toolkits will no longer be able to be used for validation.Alternative toolkits which can be used for specific timed extensions to LOTOS are being investigated.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:

Contact point:
The Distributed Multimedia Research Group
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YR
Great Britain

Date of entry:
21 December 1992

Project name:
Tenet

Funding body:
DARPA
NSF
DOE
CNRI
AT&T
DEC
Hitachi
Pacific Bell
University of California
International Computer Science Institute.

Participants:
University of California at Berkeley (US)
International Computer Science Institute (US)

Timescale:
Commenced 1988

Project aims:
To design communication services for real-time (and in particular multimedia) applications.

Description:
The Tenet group is a group of researchers engaged in several projects in the area of real-time communication. The Tenet approach to multimedia networking embodies several principles:

Because network performance cannot be achieved in the face of unpredictable network application behaviour, the interface between the network and the application is modelled as a contract to which both sides must adhere.The application guarantees not to exceed the requested bandwidth for transmission, and the network guarantees the requested performance.Achieving this requires a connection-oriented approach, with a resource-reservation algorithm employed in network switches and gateways.

The Tenet group has produced a suite of protocols ("Suite 1") based on the above approach.Four protocols are defined:

Future work ("Suite 2") will incorporate multicasting for conferencing applications.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
"Network Support for Multimedia - A Discussion of the Tenet Approach", D. Ferrari et. al., Tech.Rept.TR-92-072, International Computer Science Institute, November 1992.

This and many other papers can be obtained via anonymous FTP to tenet.berkeley.edu or by sending e-mail to file-server@tenet.berkeley.edu with the words "index Papers" in the subject field

Contact point:
Domenico Ferrari (ferrari@tenet.berkeley.edu)
Computer Science Division
EECS Department
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley
CA 94720
USA

Date of entry:
16 December 1992

Project name:
TMPI (Theories of Multi-Party Interaction)

Funding body:
British Telecom (GB)

Participants:
Queen Mary and Westfield College (GB)
University of Surrey (GB)

Timescale:
December 1989 to November 1992

Project aims:
To investigate multimedia real-time support for distributed groupwork.

Description:
A Multimedia Environment for Everyday Tasks (MEET) is being constructed by the TMPI project.The aim is to support a range of social and task-oriented interactions within the everyday work environment.

The goals for the system are the following:

MEET consists of three distinct components: an audio/video switched analogue network; a distributed software architecture to control A/V connections, and present high-level services to the user; a groupware system to support activities such as shared authoring, design, and information-sharing.

Desktop A/V equipment has been set up around Sun workstationsin four work areas in the department of Computer Science at QMW, and is being used by researchers and programmers for tasks such as co-operative software porting, and document development.To date, three types of connections to remote offices have been built - a group multimedia conference (with integrated access to CSCW tools while conferencing), videophone (A/V between 2 people), and a Glance facility.These services are accessed from users' workstations via an integrated X-based interface.An API is available for multimedia application development.

The layered architecture for setting up A/V connections should facilitate a later switch to digital technology.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
"Early Experiences in Desktop Multimedia Conferencing", S. Wilbur, S. R. Wilbur and S. Ing, to be published in Computer Supported Collaborative Work, by Gower, March 1993.

"A Multimedia System for Flexible Co-operation", S. Wilbur, B. Hewitt and S. Ing, Supercomm/ICC '92, Chicago, June 1992.

Contact point:Sylvia Wilbur (sylvia@dcs.qmw.ac.uk)

Date of entry:18 January 1993

Project name:

Touring Machine

Funding body:
Bellcore
NSF

Participants:
Bellcore

Timescale:
Commenced 1990

Project aims:
To explore the role of public communications networks in facilitating future multimedia applications.
To design and realise a robust software control infrastructure that enables a broad class of multimedia communications applications.
To investigate multimedia real-time support for distributed groupwork.

Description:
The research focuses on the design and realisation of a robust software control infrastructure that enables a broad class of multimedia communications applications by:

The project is heavily experimental in nature.

The current system provides an API to application designers; the API defines the set of messages passed between user applications and the Touring Machine infrastructure.The Touring Machine software is structured as a set of distributed objects working co-operatively to provide the services supported by the API.The system controls desk-top audio and video devices connected through a network of multiple switches and other specialised hardware resources, such as audio and video bridges and mixers.

Currently, the Touring Machine platform is the basis of several communication tools, including CRUISER (TM) and shared data applications based on RENDEZVOUS (TM).The CRUISER service is a multimedia communications application designed to support informal communications among remotely located co-workers through the medium of an audio and video network.Using Cruiser, people can initiate and participate in multimedia conferencing from their desktops, attend seminars through a "virtual auditorium" service, and access a variety of other useful services.The RENDEZVOUS system is an architecture for creating synchronous multi-user applications, such as a multi-user whiteboard.The Touring Machine platform also supports mobile users, using active badges from Olivetti Research Labs, Cambridge.These badges are based on infrared technology that allows pinpointing the location of users to within an office in the building.

The current version of the Touring Machine prototype uses analog audio and video; while unsophisticated in terms of transport technology, this choice allows the support of a large and active user population (about 150 users across two Bellcore locations 50 miles apart connected by digital links) and allows effort to be concentrated on developing the software infrastructure and multimedia applications. The infrastructure and applications are implemented by about 200,000 lines of code.The Bellcore experiment has been operational since March 1992.The software has also been distributed to some external sites as part of research collaborations, including MIT, University of Michigan, ISI and the DARPA headquarters, and is part of an NSF funded project on collaborative visualisation.

Experience with design, implementation and operation of the current system is driving the evolution of the system.The next iteration of system design addresses system structuring principles for extensible, open, managed systems, as well as expanding the functionality of the API. The design borrows heavily from the architectural principles of Bellcore's INA project; the system is designed as a distributed object-oriented system based on trading.Research contributions are in the areas of reliability, extensibility, support for hybrid analog/digital fabrics, interworking across multiple administrative domains, safeguards for an "enterprise model" allowing third-party service providers, and integrated systems management, including fault management and accounting.The design, based on OSF DCE, is scheduled to be completed by the end of January 1993, and a working demo is planned for 4Q93.There are also plans to create a version of the current system accessible via ISDN.The next system design uses OSF/DCE, OSI CMIP/CMIS, X.500, ISDN Q.931, and H.261.

Standards used:
H.261

Papers/reports:
"The Touring Machine System", Arango et. al., CACM January 1993.

"Touring Machine: A Software Platform for Distributed Multimedia Applications", Arango et. al., 1992 IFIP International Conference on Upper Layer Protocols, Architectures and Applications, Vancouver, May 1992.

"The Touring Machine Project: Toward a Public Network Platform for Multimedia Applications", G. Gopal, G. Herman and M. P. Vecchi, Eighth International Conference on Software Engineering for Telecommunications Systems and Services Florence, March 1992.

"Touring Machine:A Software Infrastructure to Support Multimedia Communications", (Extended Abstract), Arango et. al., MULTIMEDIA '92, 4th IEEE COMSOC International Workshop on Multimedia Communications, Monterey, April 1-4, 1992.

Contact point:
Gita Gopal (gita@bellcore.com)
Bellcore MRE 2A233
445 South Street
Morristown
NJ 07962
USA
Phone:+1 201 829 4517
Fax:+1 201 829 5889

Date of entry:
19 January 1993

Project name:
XMovie

Funding body:

Participants:
University of Mannheim (DE)

Timescale:
Commenced 1991

Project aims:
To implement the transmission and presentation of digital movies under X

Description:
The XMovie system is a distributed test bed for integrated transmission and presentation of digital movies.It consists of interconnected UNIX workstations.In the first implementation, the network was standard Ethernet.An FDDI-ring has been installed recently, and XMovie has been ported to FDDI.

The main components of XMovie are the Movie Server, the Movie Client and the X client.These three components can run on one, two or three different UNIX systems depending on the requirements of the application.

The movie server maintains a movie directory, and is able to store and replay sequences of digital images (digital films).On request from the movie client, a sequence of images is sent over the network to the movie client.The transmission protocol is called MTP (Movie Transmission Protocol), and was developed specifically for this purpose.The Movie Client is an extension of the standard X server of the X Window System.The extension implements a new set of functions for the purpose of displaying movies in a window on the screen.Examples of new functions are XMOpenMovie, XMPlayMovie, and XMShowSinglePicture.These extensions have been integrated into the source code of the X Window System.The third component of the system is the X client.The set of new functions mentioned above has been integrated into the Xlib function library of the X client, so that a programmer can now invoke the new functions just like other Xlib functions.

Current status is that the extensions to X server and X client are completed and running.Current work is concentrating on new movie protocols for upper layers.

Standards used:
JPEG, MPEG, H.261

Papers/reports:
"X-MOVIE: Transmission and Presentation of Digital Movies under X", B. Lamparter and W. Effelsberg, Network and Operating System Support for Digital Audio and Video, 2nd International Workshop, Heidelberg, p328, November 1991.

"MTP: A Movie Transmission Protocol for Multimedia Applications", B. Lamparter, W. Effelsberg and N. Michl, Computer Communication Review, p71, July 1992.

"MCAM: An Application Layer Protocol for Movie Control, Access, and Management", R. Keller and W. Effelsberg, Technical Report TR-1/93, Fakultat fur Mathematik und Informatik, Universitat Mannheim, Germany, January 1993.

Contact point:
W Effelsberg (effelsberg@pi4.informatik.uni-mannheim.de)
University of Mannheim
Praktische Informatik IV
W-6800 Mannheim 1
Germany
Phone:+49 621 292 3131
Fax:+49 621 292 5745

Date of entry:
18 January 1993

Project name:
Zenith

Funding Body:
SERC (GB)

Participants:
University of Lancaster(GB)
University of Kent (GB)
BT Research Laboratories (GB)

Timescale:
October 1989 to September 1992

Project aims:
To establish a set of principles which will assist designers and developers of object management systems intended for distributed multimedia design environments.
To implement a prototype generalised object management system.

Description:
Zenith is a research prototype of an object management system which is intended to meet the data management requirements of the next generation of application domains such as office information systems, integrated project support environments and geographical information systems.Zenith is designed to provide a flexible, adaptable platform for managing distributed multimedia objects, on top of which specialised applications may easily be built.The Zenith system has formed the basis of a "conferencing" application within ICI plc, involving microscope image analysis by groups of scientists.

Standards used:

Papers/reports:
"The Zenith Project: A Generalised Object Management System for a locally Distributed Multimedia Design Environment", editor J. Mariani, February 1992.(This booklet contains three papers produced as part of the Zenith project).

Contact point:
John A. Mariani (jam@comp.lancs.ac.uk)
Department of Computing
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YR
Great Britain
Phone:+44 524 65201

Date of Entry:
1 December 1992

Project name:
(none)[BBN]

Institution:
BBN (US)

Description:
BBN is doing a new video-conferencing system which will carry PictureTel codec data over ST-2, and perhaps audio over a different ST-2 stream. The transport layer is not very important; IP multicast would work equally well. Significant effort is devoted to conference-control issues, with fully distributed control of multipoint conferences exchanging all sorts of data. Right now it happens to be video and sound, but it could equally well be simulation data, shared images, or whatever.Contact Chip Elliott (celliott@com.bbn) for further information.

Project name:
none [CWI]

Institution:
CWI, Amsterdam (NL)

Description:
Contact Dick Bulterman.

Project name:
ACME

Institution:
UC Berkeley (US)

Description:
Contact anderson@snow.berkeley.edu

Project name:
ACT

Institution:
University College London (GB)

Description:
Work has just started on the ACT project (Advanced Communication in Teaching). Initially, this centres on the design of a multimedia database to be used for the storage and distribution of multimedia learning materials, both for consumption by students and for the presentation of coursework.

Project name:
CAVECAT

Institution:
University of Toronto (CA)

Description:

Project name:
DSI

Institution:
ISI (US)

Description:
Contact schooler@venera.isi.edu

Project name:
ELISE

Institution:
De Montford University, Leicester (GB)

Description:
Electronic Library Image Services for Europe.Contact Mel Collier (Phone: +44 533 577039).

Project name:
Etherphone

Institution:
UCSD (US)
Xerox PARC (US)

Description:
Deals mainly with audio, but which has been extended of late to manage video as well.

Project name:
GUIDANCE

Institution:
RACE programme (Commission of the European Community)

Description:

Project name:
Hydra

Institution:
University of Toronto (CA)

Description:

Project name:
IMEX

Institution:
RACE II programme (Commission of the European Community)

Description:
Contact jpl@gti.upm.es.

Project name:
ISA

Institution:
ANSA (GB)

Description:
Contact adc@ansa.co.uk, or Chris Jones at Architecture Project Management (cwj@apm.co.uk).

Project name:
Liveboard

Institution:
Xerox PARC (US)

Description:

Project name:
Media Space

Institution:
Xerox PARC (US)

Description:

Project name:
MERMAID

Institution:
NEC (JP)

Description:

Project name:
MMT[MMT]

Institution:
IBM Thomas J Watson Research Centre (US)

Description:

Project name:
Pandora[Pandora]

Institution:
Olivetti, Cambridge (GB)

Description:

Project name:
PREPARE

Institution:
University College London (GB)

Description:
The PREPARE project is aimed at investigating multimedia applications over interconnected LAN, Wide Area ATM, MAN and B-ISPBX. The project is building the network this autumn (1992).

Project name:
TeamWorkStation

Institution:
NTT Labs (US)

Description:

Project name:
TINA

Institution:
TINA

Description:
Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture is a collaborative effort to define a standard framework for telecommunications networking in the context of new multi-service networks, telecommunications services and ISO standardisation.Telecommunications companies throughout Europe and the USA are represented.

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