Implementation and Evaluation of an M/S Scheme for Inter-Destination Multimedia Synchronization (IDMS)

Abstract

Nowadays, the media consumption model is changing from passive isolated activities towards dynamic group shared experiences. People separated in space can already interact and collaborate within the context of simultaneous media content delivery (e.g. they can launch a real time conversation during a shared video watching). However, to stimulate the acceptance and usability of those socially aware interactive media services, synchronous communications (i.e. consistent playout states) across separated locations must be guaranteed (apart from being integrated with newer social networking technologies). Inter-Destination Multimedia Synchronization (IDMS) has become a key research topic to enable geographically dispersed consumers to experience a satisfying feeling of togetherness. Several (distributed and centralized) approaches to perform IDMS have been adopted by the research community up to date. In this paper, a Master/Slave (M/S) Control Scheme for IDMS is implemented and tested, thus analyzing its strengths and weaknesses for distributed networked environments. Simulation results prove the effectiveness and suitability of the proposed M/S Scheme in those scenarios in which scalability, consistency, interactivity and low control traffic overhead features must be provided.