An intelligent synchronization platform with QOS guarantees for multimedia communications

Quality of Services (QOSs) for diverse multimedia applications can be satisfied by the provision of synchronization platforms furnishing intramedia/intermedia synchronization and efficient process multitasking at end systems. As a result, the design of viable platforms should confront two concerns: network delay and jitter, and system multitasking. In this paper, we propose an intelligent synchronization platform, called SYNC*, satisfying given QOSs in terms of skew and throughput. SYNC* is composed of three components: Intelligent Video Smoother (IVS), Synchronizer, and Multi-thread Priority Manager (MPM). While IVS and Synchronizer deal with the network delay/jitter concern, MPM manages the challenge of system multitasking. We demonstrate via prototyping results that SYNC* achieves superior playout with respect to skew and throughput. We also observe that, the absence of either IVS/Synchronizer or MPM results in unsatisfactory playout.