Multimedia Communications

Chapter 1
Dr. Saeed Mahmud Ullah
Associate Professor
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Dhaka
 Introduction
 Multimedia Communications embraces a range of applications
and networking Infrastructures.

 The term multimedia is used to indicate that the information /

data relating to an application may be composed of a number of
different types of media which are integrated together in some way.

 The different media types are text, images, speech , audio and
video and some example applications are

 Video telephony (speech and video)

 Multimedia electronic mail (text , audio and video),
 Electronic commerce (text ,image , audio and video)
 Web TV ( text , audio and Video) and many other types
 Media types
Text :
 this includes both unformatted text , comprising of
characters from a limited character set, and formatted text
strings as used for the structuring, access , and presentation of
electronic documents.
 fixed number of binary digits (bits) – Codeword
 Digital by nature
Images :
 these include computer-generated images , comprising lines
, curves, circles and digitized images of documents and
pictures.
 picture elements (pixels/pels)
Digital by nature
 Media types
Audio :
 this includes both low-fidelity speech, as used in telephony
, and high-fidelity stereophonic music as used with compact
discs.
 analog by nature
Converted to digital
Represented by bps (typical speech signal 64 kbps)
Video :
 this includes short sequences of moving images ( also
known as video clips ) and complete movies, films.
 Analog by nature
 Converted to digital signal
 Represented by bps
 Application types
The Application may involve either

 person-to-person communication
two people communicate with each
other through suitable
terminal equipment (TE)

 Person-to-system communication.
 a person interacts with a system
using either a multimedia personal
computer (PC) or workstation.
Server containing files,
documents
Digitized movies/videos– set-top
box (STB) associated with TV.
 Communication Networks-evolution
• Initially designed and established for specific
type of media
• Upgraded to support more types of media due
to the demand of new applications
• Designed and established for different types
of media
Communication Networks
 Telephone Network
• PSTN – public service telephone network
• In existence for many years and have gone through many changes
• Initially was deigned to provide basic switched telephone service
• Subscriber can call any other connected to the total network.
• The technical operation of the PSTN adheres to the standards
created by the ITU-T. (ITU Telecommunication Standardization
Sector)
• These standards allow different networks in different countries to
interconnect seamlessly.
• The E.163 and E.164 standards provide a single global address
space for telephone numbers.
• The combination of the interconnected networks and the single
numbering plan allow telephones around the world to dial each
other.
• Mainly operates in circuit mode.
Telephone Network
 Digital data over PSTN
• Modem is used for conversion between analog and digital
• Early modems 300 bps
• Later support 56 kbps
• Sufficient to support speech and low resolution video

• Advancement in digital signal processing

• High speed modems (H-S modems) support bit rate of 1.5 Mbps for
high resolution audio and video.
Telephone Network
 Data Network
• Data networks were designed to provide basic
data communication services such as electronic
mail (email) and general file transfers.
• Equipment connected to such networks are
computer, PC, workstations, or email/file server.
• 2 most likely deployed networks are X.25 network
and the Internet.
• X.25 network is restricted to low bit rate data
applications and hence is unsuitable for most
multimedia applications.
 Data Network
• The Internet is made up of a vast collection of
interconnected networks which use the same set
of communication protocols.
• Communication protocol is an agreed set of rules
that are adhered to by all communicating parties
for the exchange of information.
• Data transfer works in packet mode.
• PC with microphone and speakers can operate for
telephony and other speech related applications
• With video camera and other hardware and
software, video applications are also possible
 Broadcast Television Network
• Broadcast TV networks were designed to support the
diffusion of analog TV (and radio) programs throughout
wide geographical areas.
• Large town/city the broadcast medium is normally a
cable distribution network
• Larger areas use satellite network or terrestrial
broadcast network
• Digital television services also available with these
networks together with a low bit rate return channel
for interaction purposes
• Additional services such as games, home shopping
possible.
 Integrated services digital network
(ISDN)
• Deployed in the early 1980s to provide
additional services to PSTN.
• Convert the access circuits that connect user
equipment to the network into all-digital form
• Provide two separate communication channel
• Provide telephone call and data call services
• With ISDN, the access circuit is known as
digital subscriber line (DSL).
 Integrated services digital network
(ISDN)
• Digitization of a telephone quality analog
speech signal produces constant bit rate
binary system – bitstream of 64kbps
• Basic Rate Access- 64 kbps (2 channels)
• Primary Rate Access- 1.5 or 2Mbps
• Switched channel of p X 64 kbps, p=1,2,3,…,30
Integrated services digital network
(ISDN)
 Broadband multiservice
` networks
• Broadband multiservice networks were designed to
support a wide range of multimedia communication
applications.
• The term “broadband” was used to indicate that the
circuits associated with a call could have bit rates in excess
of the maximum bit rate 2Mbps (30 X 64 kbps) provided by
an ISDN.
• Data networks operate in packet mode.
• For multimedia applications, binary stream is divided into
fixed sized packets known as cells.
• Different multimedia applications generate different cell
streams of different rates thus asynchronous transfer mode
(ATM) networks
Broadband multiservice networks
 Multimedia Applications
• There are many and varied applications that
involve multiple media types. In general, can
be places into 3 categories:
– Interpersonal communications
– Interactive applications over the Internet
– Entertainment applications
 Interpersonal Communications
• May involve speech, image, text, or video.
• Some cases just a single type of medium while
others two/more media types are integrated
together.
• Speech – uses the traditional PSTN
• Alternatively can use multimedia PC with
software – computer telephony integration (CTI)
• Telephone over the internet is known as voice
over IP (VoIP)
 Interpersonal communication
• Image - Alternative form of interpersonal
communications over a PSTN/ISDN is by using
facsimile or fax.
• Scan and digitize image of a document and
transmit over the network.
• Text – involving electronic mail (email)
• Email server contains a mailbox for each user
connected to a network.
 Interpersonal Communication
• Speech and video – eg. Video telephony
• Requires higher bandwidth due to the
integration of video and audio.
• Some networks such as LANs and the Internet
support multicasting.
• Multicasting – transmission from any
PCs/workstations belonging to a predefined
multicast group are received by all the other
members of the group.
Speech and video
 Interactive application over the
internet
• Most widely used with a World Wide Web
(WWW) or web.
• The web consists of inter-linkage multimedia
information servers that are geographically
distributed around the Internet.
 Entertainment application
• Can be one of two parts :
– Movie/video on-demand
– Interactive TV
Application and networking
terminology
 Network types
• There are 2 types of information stream associated
with the different media types – continuous and block-
mode
• There are 2 types of communication channels – circuit
mode (time-dependent) and packet mode (time
varying)
• Circuit mode is also synchronous communication
channel since it provides a constant bit rate service
• While packet mode is asynchronous communication
channel as it provides variable bit rate service
Circuit mode
• Call/connection setup delay- time delay for a
connection to be established
– PSTN: fraction of seconds(local call)
–Several seconds (international call)
– ISDN: tens of ms to hundreds of ms
 Packet modes
• There are 2 types of packet mode network –
connection oriented (CO) and connectionless
(CL).
• Comprises of packet switching exchanges
(PSEs)
• For CO, the connection is first set up utilizes
only a variable portion of the bandwidth of
each link and hence the connection is known
as a virtual connection or virtual circuit
 Packet mode
• For CL, the establishment of a connection is
not required and the 2 communicating
terminals/computers can communicate and
exchange information as and when they wish.
• In order to do this, each packet must carry the
full source & destination address in its header
in order for each PSE to route the packet onto
appropriate outgoing link.
• In CL, PSE is normally known as router
 Packet mode
• The service offered by a packet switched
network is best-effort service, depending of
number of packets in the output queue, there
will be some delays.
• Router uses the store-and-forward method for
packets delivery
• The overall mean transfer delay of the packet
across the network is know as mean packet
transfer delay.
 Network QoS
• The operational parameters associated with a
communication channel through a network are
known as the network Quality of Service (QoS)
parameters and collectively they determine the
suitability of the channel for the user of a
particular application.
• For circuit-switched network, the QoS parameters
associated with constant bit rate include:
– The bit rate
– The mean bit error rate (BER)
– The transmission delay
 Bit Rate
• Bit Rate is the number of bits that pass a
given point in a telecommunication network in
a given amount of time, usually a second.
 BER
• The number of bit errors is the number of
received bits of a data stream over a
communication channel that have been
altered due to noise, interface, distortion or
bit synchronization errors.
• The bit error ratio (also BER) is the number of
bit errors divided by the total number of
transferred bits during a studied time interval.
BER is a unitless performance measure,
Example of BER
 Circuit switched network
• If the probability of BER is P and number of
bits in a block is N, then assuming random
errors, the probability of a block containing a
bit error PB is given by:

• PB = 1- (1-P)N which is approx N X P (if N X P < 1)

Problem
• Transmission delay:
– Determined by bit rate
– Codec delay at terminal/computer network
interface
– Propagation delay through the channel
Problem
 Packet switched network
• The QoS parameters associated with a packet-
switched network include:
– The maximum packet size
– The mean packet transfer rate
– The mean packer error rate
– The mean packet transfer delay
– The worst-case jitter
– The transmission delay (Tp = distance/speed)
• Maximum packet size: related to worst case BER
• Mean packet transfer rate: the rate at which
packets are transferred across the network.
Average number of packets transferred across the
network per second.
• Mean packet error rate (PER): probability of a
received packet containing one or more bit
errors– related to maximum packet size and
worst case BER of the transmission link.
• Mean packet transfer delay: The sum of strore
and forward delay that a packet experiences in
each router gives the transfer or queuing
delay of that packet across the network.
• Packet transfer delay is influenced by the level
of network congestion and the number of
routers along the way of transmission.
 Mean packet transfer delay
• Nodal processing:
– check bit errors
– Determine output link
• Queuing:
– Time waiting at output link for transmission
– Depends on congestion level of router
• Transmission delay:
– R=Link bandwidth (bit/s)
– L=Packet length (bits)
– Time to send bits into link = L/R
• Propagation delay:
– d = Length of physical link
– s = Propagation speed in medium
– Propagation delay = d/s
• Jitter: worst case variation in store and
forward delay at nodes/router.
 Application QoS
• Depending on types of application, the QoS
parameters include:
– The required bit rate or mean packet transfer rate
– The maximum startup delay
– The maximum end-to-end delay
– The maximum delay variation/jitter
– The maximum round-trip delay
• Startup delay: amount of time that elapses
between an application making a request to
start a session and the confirmation being
received from the application at the
destination (server).
• End-to-end delay: the time taken for a packet
to be transmitted across a network from
source to destination.
dend-end= N[ dtrans+dprop+dproc]
• Round-trip delay: delay between a request for
some information being made and the start of
the information being received/displayed.
 Constant bit rate stream application
• Bit rate/mean packet transfer rate
• End to end delay
• Delay variation/jitter- can cause problem at
the destination decoder if rate of arrival of bit-
stream is variable.
• Circuit switched network preferable since it
provides constant bit rate.
• Call setup delay is not important.
 Interactive application
• Start up delay
• Round trip delay (for human-computer
application)
• Connection less packet-switched network is
suitable since no start up delay and variation
of packet transfer delay is not important.
 Transfer of a large file
• File size-100Mbit
• Available network:
– PSTN with modem(28.8 kbps) – 57.8 minutes
– ISDN (64 kbps) – 26 minutes
– ISDN (128 kbps) – 13 minutes
– Cable modem (packet mode) (27 Mbps)-
concurrent user – several hundreds –
• Transfer at full data rate -- 3.7s
 Interactive application over circuit
switching network
• Call set up delay for ISDN and local call set up
delay for PSTN is low.
• Some interactive applications can avail these
networks.
 Constant bit rate application over
packet switched network
• Equivalent bit rate is higher than input bit rate
• Maximum jitter is less than a defined value
• Buffering technique is used.
Problem