We have developed and demonstrated a remote continuous media playback application
called cmplayer, using the Berkeley Continuous Media Toolkit (CMT). Cmplayer
can be used in conjunction with a World Wide Web browser to access remotely stored
continuous media data (i.e., video and audio) and provide synchronized playback
of multiple media streams. The cmplayer communicates with a server process
also written with CMT to stream media data across the network using adaptive control
to compensate for limited network bandwidth, server utiliza tion, and client CPU
resources. A simple script format is used to indicate the location of each piece
of media data (i.e., hostname, port number and the filename) and specify source
synchronization between media streams. Multiple video and audio streams can be
specified. In addition, scrolling text streams and streams of Tcl commands can
be integrated as stream types. A stream can be stored in multiple media data files
distributed on different servers. Cmplayer script files are ASCII text
and are typically less than 10 lines long. Cmplayer provides full VCR-like
controls and random access into any point of the video.