Session sharing as middleware service for distributed multimedia applications

Abstract

The increased number of mobile and stationary devices with multimedia capabilities enables new application scenarios. Particularly interesting is collaborative multimedia access, where a number of users simultaneously enjoys the same content - possibly at different locations using different devices. In this paper we focus on middleware support for such application scenarios. In particular our approach allows to share parts of an active multimedia session and provides synchronized and distributed media playback on various devices within different applications. As a middleware service, our solution automatically maps new application requests to already registered playback sessions. We demonstrate our approach with different application scenarios that include synchronized media playback on stationary and mobile devices. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.