Virtual Internet broadcasting

This article describes the design and first implementation of a virtual broadcast system whereby a multimedia content program can be edited, produced, and streamed from different locations. Data are stored and distributed decentrally, allowing multiple combinations of program objects to new programs. The virtual broadcast station is the network. This concept additionally offers the clients the opportunity to obtain an individual (personalized) program, still using bandwidth-economic multicast technologies. This is achieved by dividing multimedia streams into temporal chunks (chunk streams), streamed over different multicast host groups (distributed multicasting), using existing Internet session control protocols (SDP) and Internet transport protocols (RTP). A client application assembles the transmitted chunks to form an individual program. This technique can also be used to insert personal/local advertisements into broadcast-like services.