A distributed multimedia component architecture

A new framework is required for the consistent and coordinated construction and configuration of multimedia components across heterogeneous distributed object environments. The paper presents a distributed multimedia component architecture which extends beyond the current well developed distributed object models, such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and the Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) models, to support additional mechanisms and abstractions for continuous media stream interactions aimed particularly at distributed multimedia applications. This framework additionally includes distributed resource management and dynamic Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring and adaptation in order to support the implementation of complex distributed multimedia applications over heterogeneous networks and end-systems. The multimedia component architecture (MCA) presented is being used as the middleware component of a comprehensive resource management architecture for distributed applications (Waddington, 1997).