Flexible server architecture for resource-optimal presentation of Internet multimedia streams at the client

The transfer of live media streams such as video and audio over the Internet is subject to several problems, static and dynamic by nature. Important quality of service (QoS) parameters do not only differ between various receivers depending on their network access, service provider, and nationality, the QoS is also variable in time. Moreover the installed receiver base is heterogeneous with respect to operating system, browser or client software, and browser version. We present a new concept for serving live media streams. It is no longer based on the current one-size-fits all paradigm, where the server offers just one stream. Our compresslet system takes the opposite approach: it builds media streams 'to order' and 'just in time'. Every client subscribing to a media stream uses a servlet loaded into the media server to generate a tailored data stream for his resources and constraints. The server is designed such that commonly used components for media streams are computed once. The compresslets use these prefabricated components, code additional data if necessary, and construct the data stream based on the dynamical available QoS and other client constraints. A client-specific encoding leads to resource-optimal presentation that is especially useful for the presentation of complex multimedia documents on a variety of output devices.