Interactive remote recording and playback of multicast videoconferences

Abstract

One of the most exciting technologies in today’s Internet is the MBone. MBone stands for Multicast Backbone; it provides the infrastructure for efficient multipoint packet delivery in the Internet. The most popular scenario is worldwide audio-video conferencing. However, so far there are no satisfactory solutions available on how to archive multimedia data streams of multicast videoconferences, and how to make them accessible for remote sites (i.e. how to remotely record and remotely play back MBone conferences). In this paper we present architectural considerations, design issues and describe a prototypical implementation of a Video Conference Recording on Demand (VCRoD) service for the MBone. Our system is called MBone VCRoD Service (MVoD) and is a client-server based architecture for interactive remote recording and playback of MBone sessions. MVoD is implemented based on open standards (e.g. CORBA), making it possible for other applications to interface it. Since the MVoD client application is implemented using JAVA, it will be possible to access the service from almost any platform.