Live Audio And Video In Distributed Cloud Environment - Overview And Technical Details

Justification of live video and audio

The live Audio and Video in distributed Cloud Environment is the process where the media like the videos and audios contents  are  transmitted via the internet as in compressed forms and they get played immediately but they don’t get saved in the computer’s hard disks.

However during the live video streaming  the people streaming that are streaming don’t need to download the video files in order to play it ,this is achieved since the media get sent as  streams continuously and then get played as the media streams arrives the clients.

During the streaming process the users are able to do various operations which include the pausing, rewinding forwarding like any downloaded file but the only difference is that the content is received as the streaming live.

The live video and audio streaming is used in various purposes which includes the following:

• Enable the users to use the applications which are interactive which are like the videos search personal play lists.
• Enables the monitoring of the contents being watched by some people and the duration that get watched.
• There is efficiency usage of the internet bandwidth since only section of file being transmitted gets watched.
• The creator of contents has various controls since the file is not stored and it get discarded immediately it get watched.

The live videos and audio streaming requires various types of tools and equipments which includes the following:

These are the gargets that are used on the clients side, however the most recommended is the computer or a laptop, this is because of the high processing speed and thus there will be no lagging of the streaming content and the camera speed will be kept up by the laptop speed.[1]

However the computer get internet bandwidth which is through the wire connectivity which provides the highest speed of internet with high quality services.[2]

This is another gadget that is used to capture the event that are being transmitted and thus it is used in capturing of the live videos.

There is the built in microphones which enables has low quality and they reduces noise ,there could also be an external microphones .

However the speakers are also used to produce the sound to the clients and thus there is more quality in the production of sound.

The server is used to stream the video live using the servers like the UStream and the livestream and these servers allows the ease streaming of  server signals.²

This is a box which is used to do plugging the camera and the microphones; however this garget is connected to the internet to allow video and audio streaming. 

For better quality it is not advisable to do connection though media like the Bluetooth and the best connection is the wire connection where there is no sharing in the connections.

This is the software that is used for the purpose of encoding however it is highly available from the internet for free then it is installed in the computers.

This software requires one to possess a computer in order to be able to do streaming of the video or events and then the microphones and cameras are connected to the computers being used.

The internet connectivity is a vital thing to be considered where there must be a strong internet bandwidth  with high speed  which should have an average of not less than 2.6 MBps uploading speed . 

This is a platform that will enable the sharing of the streamed video and audio over the internet, the platform can be TV screen, a projector or any visual display device.

Tools and Equipments

The live video and audio transmission is used to display the output to the clients where the contents is viewed, however this is enabled by use of middleware applications which is computerised application that offer services to video conference software applications which are in operating systems and outside the operating systems³.

1. web servers.

The above is an illustration of the web server this consist of computers that provides the web pages to the requesting clients ,it has the IP addresses and the domains names.

1. Application servers

The above is the setup of the application servers, however the web server is one component that is located in the middle tier of the above server architecture ,this however gives the  security and also status of the maintenance to enable the accessibility of data and its persistence.

1. Contents management systems.

This is another type of middleware or correction of various software applications that maintains the database of the created digital media contents which is then transmitted through the live video and audio streaming.[6]

1. Games engines.

This is a middleware that is mad of various  programs which includes the gamebryo and renderware and they offer service in gaming including development and streaming games online using the computers and phones .

1. Radio-frequency identification.

This is a middle ware program that essentially filters noise and reduces the redundancy in the raw data waiting to be transmitted.

However this middle ware uses the electromagnetic fields to do identification and tracking any tag in the contents transmitted or streamed through video or audio signals.

The video and audio transmission is done through various methods and mechanisms which includes the following which helps in encoding and decoding of the signals:

1. BitTorrent based video block device.

This is a technique that give the clients a very clear view and users uses the video block device (VBD) which is give a module that allow the communications between the clients and the severs which are the content senders. In this case the blocks which are yet to be used are not stored in the cache memory until it get used. 

1. Scalable videos coding

This is a technique where the clouds servers acts like the extractors in SVC and this enables a large number of clients to view the videos through streaming and thus gives arrangement of content delivered to give best quality that is required by the clients.

1. P2P Live Video Streaming Cloud

This is streaming technique that streams live from the cloud and in this case the clouds server which is public is used in order to do construction of platforms which are scalable for delivering of the videos and audios using the scalable video coding technologies and thus very large number of clients is able to stream dynamically.

1. Progressive Download

This is a technique that is used by clients using the mobile devices and thus the contents are compressed data and this makes it easy for playing using the HTTP which downloads the contents slowly and gradually.

1. HTTP Live Streaming

This is a technique that uses the HTTPs structures to do the  streaming of the multimedia and facilitates the communication using the appropriate protocols including the Hyper text transport protocol (HTTP) and  Live Streaming (HLS), this techniques is adopted by the devices like the IOS IPODs and Iphones.

Middleware used in live video and audio

The live video and audio streaming has to use various tools which includes the following that enables smooth and efficient transmission.

1. Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)

This is a freely available tool that is required to be configured a little before use ,it is therefore a vital tool when it comes to transmission of live video streams to the clients.

1. Wirecast

This is another tool that can be used to video transmission which is mainly used for live streaming in the face book applications and also requires little setup although it is more useful than the OBS. [7]

However in this software the clients are able to do customisation to fit their display tastes accordingly and thus showing uniqueness in the looks and its appearances.

1. Face book Live

This is another tool that was launched by the facebook in year 2016 ,however it gives the ability of broadcasting of video to large  number of clients  through the computers IOS devices and even the mobile devices too.

1. IBM Clouds Videos

This is a tool that was developed in year 2016 and offers the  cloud videos services and thus has ability of delivering the live video on demands contents to the clients.

1. Instagrams Live Videos.

This a another type of tool that is used by clients that posses the instagram accounts and thus the follower and clients are able to do sharing of the videos and audios which is in real time and live and the video is only viewable only when is live and when it is done it cannot be accessed again in the instagram.

1. YouTube Live

This is a tool that provides any videos type that had been recorded previously and then uploaded ,this also  provide features that enables live event viewing when one creates an account and one view the videos in real times.

1. Livestreaming

This is tool that gives the services to businesses owner that need live broadcasting of their business this give best qualities and also is very easy to operate and use and thus boosts the services offered to the customers. ⁷.

1. Periscope Producers

This is a tool that is used by the twitter  in order to broadcast live using the social media websites and this enables the twitter to stream live videos through the computers ,and mobile devices like android phones and IOS phones

1. Twitch

This is a tool that is mainly meant for game players who like to broadcast their games and also able to watching the other players games.[8]

1. Bambuser

This is a tool that enables the video sharing using the mobile devices ,this has a low level of latency ,make it able to have live videos and it is amainly used by the various mobile users in various platforms.

1. YouNow

This is famous live videos streaming application and it is also used for chatting but it is mainly used to do video broadcast .

1. Tinychat

This is a tool that is mainly used for chatting and interaction and thus it is termed to be more of video chatting and the clients are able to form their own videos chatting rooms.

The live video and audio streaming uses various protocols depending on the uses and the purpose which includes the following:

Live Video And Audio Transmission Techniques

i. Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP)

The RSVP is a  protocol that controls the networks and this is by enabling the clients to do requesting of the  data flow⁸.

However this application is used by the programs  where the router is used to do request of the appropriate bandwidths in the path of transmission and thus the RSVP make the biggest portion in the integrated service internet that end up providing the real times services in the transmission processes.

Below is a figure illustrating the layout of the RSVP protocol and its components.

ii. Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP)

This is a protocol that is based on the IP protocol in order to be supported to transmit data in real times inform of videos and audios streaming.

This protocol caters for the reconstructing time, detecting of losses, maintenance of security and identifying the contents.

However it mainly does multicasting of real time data and also for uncasts of the data which is used for video transmission on demand or in cases of interactive services including telephoning over the internet.

RTP is designed to work in conjunction with the auxiliary control protocol RTCP to get feedback on quality of data transmission and information about participants in the on-going session.[9]

Below is a simple illustration of the RTP protocol and the involved layers.

iii. Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)

This is a protocol that is used to transmission of data across many networks in terms of streams, this is to avoid the storage of data in file form in the network storage media.

This involves the streaming of the data packets between the servers and the clients which involves the activities like playing, decompressing and receiving of the data packets.

Therefore this is a protocol that allows the delivering of the media which is streamed in a controlled from via the IP networks and enables the pausing forwarding and reversal of the media files or video clips.

iv.  Hypertext protocol (HTTP)

This is a protocol that is used to do transmission of the video through the use of the video on demand or even through live streaming process. [10]

v.  Real Time Messaging Protocol RTMP

This a protocol developed by the adobe company which supports the adobe flash player  plug-in ,this protocol is efficient in terms of encryption of data ,security and encapsulations.

The live video and audio streaming is determined by various factors and metrics which includes the following factors that determines the quality of the services offered in the live streaming services, below are some of the metrics of live video and audio streaming: 

1. Low throughput:

The throughput is reduced since there may be a large number of users of the network and thus the load vary and thus the bit rates end up being too low to enable the real times video streaming .

1. Dropping of packets

The data load if it get corrupted it end up being dropped by the routers or in case when the data packet reaches the router and find the buffer memory is full and thus will result to transmission delay.

1. Network Errors

This is the case where the data packets get corrupted in case there is arising errors due to noises or even interferences , this happens when the transmission of data packets is done through the wireless networks or using the copper wire then it will require to be retransmitted again to the receiver.

1. High Latency

This is cases where the data packets is held in the transmission queues and thus taking too long to arrive to the destinations. This can happen even if the packet happen to use a different routes while there is congestions in the network and thus affects the live videos streaming as well.[11]

1. Network Jitters.

The packet during streaming will take long this is due to delay as it get determined by the number and spacing of the routing devices in the network and thus end up affecting the qualities of the streamed audios and videos.[12]

1. Out-of-order delivery

This is a case where there are various packets that get routed  in a certain network  ,some of the packets tends to take a different route and thus resulting to delays and therefore the packets arrive the destinations  at different times and orders and therefore the streamed video qualities get affected by both the latencies and poor packets sequences.[13]

Coulouris, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design .London: Addison Wesley,2016.

Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design .London: Addison Wesley,2016.

Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design. London: Addison Wesley,2016.

Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design .London: Addison Wesley,2016.

Pantos, R.P,HTTP Live Streaming draft-pantos-http-live-streaming-19.New York:

HarperCollins Publishers,2015.

HTTP Live Streaming draft-pantos-http-live-streaming-19.New York: HarperCollins Publishers,2015.

HTTP Live Streaming draft-pantos-http-live-streaming-19.New York: HarperCollins  Publishers,2015.

Miller,MulticastNetworking and Applications. London: Addison Wesley,2016.

Wang.F,mtreebone:a hybrid tree/mesh overlay for application-layer live video multicast.London: Springer US press,2016.

Miller,MulticastNetworking and Applications.London: Addison Wesley,2016.

MulticastNetworking and Applications. London: AddisonWesley,2016.