Continuous media applications have exceptionally stringent QoS requirements, and QoS for multimedia will remain a challenge well into the future. The solution begins with service-differentiated networks capable of providing appropriate grades of service to each application. This book takes the next step, showing how continuous media applications and QoS-enabled networks can interact, and offering a leading-edge framework in which applications and the network can cooperatively optimize end-to-end QoS.

Coverage includes:

• New video-categorization schemes for assigning video-packet-to-network differentiated service classes

• Adaptive packet-forwarding mechanisms that improve cooperation between multimedia applications and networks

• Dynamic QoS mapping-control schemes that let DiffServ networks deliver variable media streams with consistent quality

• Fine-Grained Scalable MPEG-4-based video streamingoseamlessly integrating rate adaptation, prioritized packetization, and loss-based differential forwarding

• Joint-source-network approach: layered video combining application-level UEP with network-level QoS support

• New network service models for layered video multicasting across DiffServ networks

Whether you're a multimedia researcher, designer, developer, or implementer, these advanced techniques can help you optimize performance, content categorization, and quality control.