A study of the host-network interface for MPEG based desktop video conferencing

This paper describes the experimental transport of a full motion MPEG-1 system stream (combines audio, video and timing information) over an ATM network. We analysed the factors related to the host interface that affected the video and audio quality. We found that in order to achieve high resolution video conferencing at the desktop, a dedicated hardware decoder is needed. Furthermore, software handling of the MPEG-1 packets introduces jitter greater than 250 ms due to the underlying non-real time operating system. We plan to use the results to define and develop a dedicated network-interface and audio-video decoder-encoder subsystem that unloads the PC and facilitates video conferencing and video playback.