DF*: Modeling dynamic process creation and events for interactive multimedia applications

Modeling the next generation of multi-media systems requires handling non-synchronised event inputs from users, managing task sets that change over a short period of time, significantly larger computational demands that can be met with the available resources and the flexibility of a single hardware platform that can perform multi-media processing and rendering today and adapt to new standards as and when they are implemented. Modeling interrupts, exceptions, data dependency and non-determinism is required in addition to data flow processing which is controlled by a control flow environment. DF* is a specification model that addresses the features required to model all known aspects of multimedia systems at a specification level including events, dynamic task management and non-determinism. This paper explores the dynamic task management and event handling of DF* in the context of a particular application.