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Coordinating
Heterogeneous
Time-Based
Media
Between
Independent
Applications
Scott
Flinn
Submitted to MultiMedia '95, May 1995
TR-95-16
ABSTRACT
This report discusses the requirements and design of an event
scheduler that facilitates the synchronization of
independent, heterogeneous media streams. The work is motivated
by the synchronization requirements of multiple, periodic,
logically independent auditory streams, but extends naturally to
include time-based media of arbitrary type. The scheduler
design creates a framework within which existing synchronization
techniques are composed to coordinate the presentation
activities of cooperating or independent application programs.
The scheduler is especially effective for the presentation of
repetitive sequences, and guarantees long term synchronization
with a hardware clock, even when scheduler capacity is
temporarily exceeded on platforms lacking real time system
support. The implementations of the scheduler and of several
application programs, class libraries and other tools designed
to use or support it are described in detail.