Achieving High Interactivity and Stability of a Videoconferencing System over ATM Networks

Ting-Chao HOU  Chorng-Horng YANG  Kim-Joan CHEN  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E84-B   No.7   pp.1926-1935
Publication Date: 2001/07/01
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Multimedia Systems
Keyword: 
interactivity,  videoconferencing,  system stability,  ATM network,  

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Summary: 
A model of interactive videoconference is proposed for investigating the interactivity of the videoconference. Through running a prototype videoconferencing system over ATM networks, we observed that the system stability would degrade abruptly if the interaction demand from conferees exceeds what the system control can support. By using the proposed model, we formulate the problem of achieving high interactivity and stability as maximizing interactivity by tuning system parameters subject to some stability constraints. Solving the problem is non-trivial since it involves unpredictable network delays. We thus develop practical approaches that can choose and dynamically adjust, according to the network condition, the values of system parameters to meet the stability constraints and improve the interactivity. Finally, we validate our approaches and provide guidelines on choosing the parameter values by conducting experiments and simulations.