Design and Simulation of a Distributed Control Scheme for Inter-Destination Media Synchronization

Inter-Destination Multimedia Synchronization (IDMS) is a key requirement to enable satisfying group shared media experiences. This paper presents the design and simulation of a Distributed Control Scheme (DCS) for IDMS. In this scheme, geographically dispersed receivers exchange (multicast) RTCP reports on their arrival and playout timing for RTP packets, and each one of them uses the collected reports from the other receivers belonging to the same logical group (or cluster) to adaptively adjust its local playout timing such that an overall synchronization status (within allowable limits) is maintained. Also, the strengths (interactivity, flexibility, scalability, and robustness) and weaknesses (traffic overhead, security) of a DCS for IDMS are discussed, in comparison with centralized approaches. Moreover, a simple technique to enhance the performance in terms of coherence when using the DCS for IDMS is proposed. Simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme and techniques to guarantee concurrently synchronized playout points for independent clusters of receivers.