An Integrated Push/Pull Buffer Management Method in Multimedia Communication Environments

Multimedia communication systems require not only high-performance computer hardware and highspeed networks, but also a buffer management mechanism to process voluminous data efficiently. Two buffer handling methods, push and pull, are commonly used. In the push method, a server controls the flow of data to a client, while in the pull method, a client controls the flow of data from a server. These two buffering schemes can be applied to the data transfer between the packet receiving buffer, which receives media data from a network server, and media playback devices, which play the received media data. However, the buffer management mechanisms at client-side mainly support only one of the push and the pull methods. In other words, different types of playback devices separately use either but not both of the buffer methods. This leads to inefficient buffer memory usage and to inflexible buffer management for the various types of media playback devices. To resolve these problems, in this...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: LCTRTS
• Authors: Sungyoung Lee, Hyonwoo Seung, Taewoong Jeon
• Keywords: Buffer Management, Buffer Management Mechanisms, LCTRTS 2000, Single Buffer, System Software