Oracle Video server, Manual

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What Are the Challenges of Digital Video?
1-8 Introducing Oracle Video Server
Customizing the Video Client
The Oracle Video Client can do more than simply request and display digital video.
Its true power lies in its ability to act as a platform that enables you to develop
completely customized video applications for use in computer-based training,
information kiosks, Web sites, and corporate information repositories.
The OVC software comprises a variety of components, each extensible and
customizable, including:
■
Java native classes and a Java player applet, to afford complete consistency and
portability across a variety of operating platforms, such as Microsoft Windows
and various “flavors” of the UNIX operating system. Use of a Java-based video
client also eliminates the need for an installed HTML browser on the target
platform. Additionally, a Java-based client implementation enables smooth
integration and use on Java-based devices such as NCs and set-top boxes.
■
Web Plug-in, for use under a browser in HTML pages.
■
ActiveX control, to integrate the video client into applications designed to
operate in the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT operating systems.
Developers can then deploy the base video client on various machines, using these
“extensions” as the means of integrating the client’s functionality.
What Are the Challenges of Digital Video?
Broadly speaking, the challenge of streamed of digital video is to
1.
retrieve large encoded content files from storage,
2.
stream these files at high delivery rates across a network that may be
unreliable, and then
3.
reassemble, decode and display the streamed content on a client device.
Although the particular challenges of implementing digital video will vary
depending on the environment (broadband, enterprise, or Internet), some of these
challenges are common to all environments. For example, latencies in delivering
data over a network might be acceptable or even unnoticeable in applications such
as word processors or spreadsheets, which are not isochronous or time-sensitive.
Such latencies are extremely noticeable in time-dependent applications such as
video, and show up in the form of glitches such as:
■
misaligned or non-corresponding parts of the video screen
■
some (or all) parts of the screen stop moving