Synchronous control for retrieval of data with Java in distributed multimedia databases

Owing to advances in networking, infrastructures necessary for the use of distributed multimedia databases are being realized, and they establish the environment to set up practical multimedia databases. This paper points out the necessities of synchronous control at the terminals used for retrieving data from distributed multimedia databases, and also points out the usefulness of Java in the synchronous control of the data to be displayed, from the viewpoint of language specifications. With a Java-based experimental system, this paper discusses the effect of multithreading on the system throughput viewing from these terminals, and the synchronous control of the content data on the displays. Finally, this paper shows that Java is optimum for synchronous control of the retrieval terminal. We also show that the state of the synchronous control can be simply verified, in the form which the eyes can see, by the trace information.