Multimedia Transport Thorsten Herfet, Pablo Gil Pereira

Quick Links

• Introduction
• Prerequisites
• Course Structure
• Exams
• Resources
• Literature

Course Details

Introduction

Nowadays a significant portion of the Internet traffic is due to audio/visual applications (VoIP, Youtube, IPTV). However, the used transport protocols (TCP, UDP/RTP) are inappropriate and lack means of optimised and application layer adapted content transport.

The course will introduce the requirements for media transport in the Internet, introduce proper channel models, calculate the channel capacity of those channels and derive a framework for optimised media transport. The focus is on the error coding in the transport layer, so that the results can be applied to any audio/visual application.

Besides giving an overview over recent specifications and standards (DVB, DLNA, ISMA) the course will introduce latest research results on media transport.

Prerequisites

Digital Transmission & Signal Processing (Telecommunications I) as well as Audio/visual Communications and Networks (Telecommunications II) are recommended for this course. Students with solid background in Computer Networks and Error Correction, however, are also encouraged to participate.

Course Structure

Basic Rules

• Please note that small changes and corrections will be applied to the lecture notes throughout the semester. If you find mistakes or have suggestions how to enhance the lecture notes we appreciate your input!
• Please don’t hesitate to tell us if you have any comments or suggestions related to lecture notes, task sheets, exercises or even organization things. We will improve it soon so you can benefit from it, not only future students.
• There will be printed weekly quizzes with 5 questions for 15 minutes every week on Tuesdays from 14:15 - 14:30. These quizzes are graded individually and the points will be published online.

Exercise Group

• Place: Campus C6.3 Room: 9.05
• Time: Thursdays 10:15 - 11:45
• First Exercise: October 24th
• During the exercises you will be asked to demonstrate your understanding of the task sheet problems.

Task Sheets

• Task sheets are issued on Tuesdays after the lecture and are available online.
• You do not have to submit the solutions, instead work on the tasks until the following tutorial.
• During the tutorial you can volunteer to demonstrate your understanding on the task sheet questions and get an additional 1 point on every task you have contributed individually. Multiple students can't claim points for the same task.

Correction

• The quizzes and task sheets for this course will be divided into two parts (6 in each block respectively). It is necessary to pass both the blocks individually to be eligible for the exam.
• Weekly Quizzes and Task Sheets:
  • Each weekly quiz are worth 5 points total, which adds up to 30 points total for all quizzes in each block. These points can be earned individually by everyone.
  • Each task sheet contains minimum 3 tasks, which adds up to 18 points total for all tasks in each block. These points can be earned only if you individually can demonstrate your understanding on the task during the tutorial.
  • Final points are calculated by adding up over all quizzes and task sheets within a block.
  • You need minimum 20 points in total to pass a block and must pass both block A and B to be eligible for the exam.

Exams

This year, the exams will be held as ORAL exams.
We will schedule all exam slots in the three days given below. The exact time of each slot and how you can choose a certain slot will be announced at a later date.

• Main exam: 11-12 February
• Re-exam: 24-25 March

Resources

• Since March 2012 the UdS has a MATLAB campus license which can be used by all university students for non-commercial purposes.
• CIP pool at Saarland university provides access.
• This lecture will follow the online Multimedia Transport book, which can also be used locally following this instructions.

Literature

Ramjee Prasad, Marina Ruggieri: "Technology Trends in Wireless Communications", Artech House Publishers, 2003, ISBN = {1-58053-352-3}

Mihaela van der Schaar, Philip A. Chou: "Multimedia over IP and wireless networks: compression, networking, and systems", Academic Press, 2007, ISBN = {0-12088-480-1}