A TMO-based software architecture for distributed real-time multimedia processing

We propose a comprehensive model of an API-set (application program interface) that allows developers to envision and realize a variety of distributed real-time multimedia applications as networks of easily understood and analyzable high-level real-time distributed computing objects, called time-triggered message-triggered objects (TMOs). This model reflects our view that any multimedia application can be represented by a set of properly networked TMOs. The software architecture and structuring model basically consists of four building blocks, which are the single stream TMO, the compound stream TMO, the conductor TMO, and the stream connection. The definitions and roles of these building blocks are discussed and illustrated by applying them in structuring a multi-party audio-video teleconferencing service system.