One document matched: draft-perkins-avt-rapid-rtp-sync-02.txt
Differences from draft-perkins-avt-rapid-rtp-sync-01.txt
Network Working Group C. Perkins
Internet-Draft University of Glasgow
Updates: RFC3550 T. Schierl
(if approved) Fraunhofer HHI
Intended status: Standards Track February 13, 2009
Expires: August 17, 2009
Rapid Synchronisation of RTP Flows
draft-perkins-avt-rapid-rtp-sync-02.txt
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Abstract
This memo outlines how RTP multimedia sessions are synchronised, and
discusses how rapidly such synchronisation can occur. We show that
most RTP sessions can be synchronised immediately, but that the use
of video switching multipoint conference units (MCUs) or large source
specific multicast (SSM) groups can greatly increase the initial
synchronisation delay. This increase in delay can be unacceptable to
some applications that use layered and/or multi-description codecs.
This memo updates the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) timing rules to
reduce the initial synchronisation delay for SSM sessions. A new
feedback packet is defined for use with the Extended RTP Profile for
RTCP-based Feedback (RTP/AVPF), allowing video switching MCUs to
rapidly request resynchronisation. Two new RTP header extensions are
defined to allow rapid synchronisation of late joiners, and guarantee
correct timestamp based decoding order recovery for layered codecs in
the presence of clock skew.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Synchronisation of RTP Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Initial Synchronisation Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1. Unicast Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2. Source Specific Multicast (SSM) Sessions . . . . . . . 6
2.1.3. Any Source Multicast (ASM) Sessions . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2. Synchronisation for Late Joiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Reducing RTP Synchronisation Delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1. Rapid Resynchronisation Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2. In-band Delivery of Synchronisation Metadata . . . . . . . 10
3.3. Signalling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4. Application to Decoding Order Recovery in Layered Codecs . . . 12
4.1. Problem description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2. Use of RTP Header Extensions for Synchronisation . . . . . 12
4.3. Timestamp based decoding order recovery . . . . . . . . . 13
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
When using RTP to deliver multimedia content it's often necessary to
synchronise playout of audio and video components of a presentation.
This is achieved using information contained in RTP Control Protocol
(RTCP) Sender Report (SR) packets [1]. These are sent periodically,
and the components of a multimedia session cannot be synchronised
until sufficient RTCP SR packets have been received for each flow to
allow the receiver to establish mappings between the media clock used
for each flow, and the common (NTP-format) clock used to establish
synchronisation.
Recently, concern has been expressed that this synchronisation delay
is problematic for some applications, for example those using layered
or multi-description video coding. This memo reviews the operations
of RTP synchronisation, and describes the synchronisation delay that
can be expected. Two backwards compatible extensions to the basic
RTP synchronisation mechanism are proposed:
o An enhancement to the Extended RTP Profile for RTCP-based Feedback
(RTP/AVPF) [2] is defined to allow receivers to request additional
RTCP SR packets, providing the metadata needed to synchronise RTP
flows. This can reduce the synchronisation delay when joining
sessions with large RTCP reporting intervals, or in the presence
of packet loss.
o Two RTP header extensions are defined, to deliver synchronisation
metadata in-band with RTP data packets. These extensions provide
synchronisation metadata that is aligned with RTP data packets,
and so eliminate the need to estimate clock-skew between flows
before synchronisation. They can also reduce the need to receive
RTCP SR packets before synchronising flows.
The immediate use-case for these extensions is to reduce the delay
due to synchronisation when joining a layered video session (e.g. an
H.264/SVC session in NI-T mode [7]). The extensions are not specific
to layered coding, however, and can be used in any environment when
synchronisation latency is an issue.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3].
2. Synchronisation of RTP Flows
RTP flows are synchronised by receivers based on information that is
contained in RTCP SR packets generated by senders (specifically, the
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NTP and RTP timestamps). Each type of media (e.g. audio or video) is
sent in a separate RTP session, and the receiver associates RTP flows
to be synchronised by means of the canonical end-point identifier
(CNAME) item included in the RTCP Source Description (SDES) packets
generated by the sender. To ensure synchronisation, an RTP sender
MUST therefore send periodic compound RTCP packets following Section
6 of RFC 3550 [1].
The timing of these periodic compound RTCP packets will depend on the
number of members in each RTP session, the fraction of those that are
sending data, the session bandwidth, the configured RTCP bandwidth
fraction, and whether the session is multicast or unicast (see RFC
3550 Section 6.2 for details). In summary, RTCP control traffic is
allocated a small fraction, generally 5%, of the session bandwidth,
and of that fraction, one quarter is allocated to active RTP senders,
while receivers use the remaining three quarters (these fractions can
be configured via SDP [8]). Each member of an RTP session derives an
RTCP reporting interval based on these fractions, whether the session
is multicast or unicast, the number of members it has observed, and
whether it is actively sending data or not. It then sends a compound
RTCP packet on average once per reporting interval (the actual packet
transmission time is randomised in the range [0.5 ... 1.5] times the
reporting interval to avoid synchronisation of reports).
A minimum reporting interval of 5 seconds is RECOMMENDED, except that
the delay before sending the initial report "MAY be set to half the
minimum interval to allow quicker notification that the new
participant is present" [1]. Also, for unicast sessions, "the delay
before sending the initial compound RTCP packet MAY be zero" [1]. In
addition, for unicast sessions, and for active senders in a multicast
session, the fixed minimum reporting interval MAY be scaled to "360
divided by the session bandwidth in kilobits/second. This minimum is
smaller than 5 seconds for bandwidths greater than 72 kb/s." [1]
2.1. Initial Synchronisation Delay
A multimedia session comprises a set of concurrent RTP sessions among
a common group of participants, using one RTP session for each media
type. For example, a videoconference (which is a multimedia session)
might contain an audio RTP session and a video RTP session. To allow
a receiver to synchronise the components of a multimedia session, a
compound RTCP packet containing an RTCP SR packet and an RTCP SDES
packet with a CNAME item MUST be sent to each of the RTP sessions in
the multimedia session. A receiver cannot synchronise playout across
the multimedia session until such RTCP packets have been received on
all of the component RTP sessions. If there is no packet loss, this
gives an expected initial synchronisation delay equal to the average
time taken to receive the first RTCP packet in the RTP session with
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the longest RTCP reporting interval. This will vary between unicast
and multicast RTP sessions.
2.1.1. Unicast Sessions
For unicast multimedia sessions, senders SHOULD transmit an initial
compound RTCP packet (containing an RTCP SR packet and an RTCP SDES
packet with a CNAME item) immediately on joining each RTP session in
the multimedia session. The individual RTP sessions are considered
to be joined once any in-band signalling for NAT traversal (e.g. [9])
and/or security keying (e.g. [10],[11]) has concluded, and the media
path is open. This implies that the initial RTCP packet is sent in
parallel with the first data packet following the guidance in RFC
3550 that "the delay before sending the initial compound RTCP packet
MAY be zero" and, in the absence of any packet loss, flows can be
synchronised immediately.
Note that NAT pinholes, firewall holes, quality-of-service, and media
security keys should have been negotiated as part of the signalling,
whether in-band or out-of-band, before the first RTCP packet is sent.
This should ensure that any middleboxes are ready to accept traffic,
and reduce the likelihood that the initial RTCP packet will be lost.
2.1.2. Source Specific Multicast (SSM) Sessions
For multicast sessions, the delay before sending the initial RTCP
packet, and hence the synchronisation delay, varies with the session
bandwidth and the number of members in the session. For a multicast
multimedia session, the average synchronisation delay will depend on
the slowest of the component RTP sessions; this will generally be the
session with the lowest bandwidth (assuming all the RTP sessions have
the same number of members).
When sending to a multicast group, the reduced minimum RTCP reporting
interval of 360 seconds divided by the session bandwidth in kilobits
per second [1] should be used when synchronisation latency is likely
to be an issue. Also, as usual, the reporting interval is halved for
the first RTCP packet. Depending on the session bandwidth and the
number of members, this gives the following average synchronisation
delays:
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Session| Number of receivers (single sender assumed):
Bandwidth| 2 3 4 5 10 100 1000 10000
--+------------------------------------------------
8 kbps| 2.73 4.10 5.47 5.47 5.47 5.47 5.47 5.47
16 kbps| 2.50 2.50 2.73 2.73 2.73 2.73 2.73 2.73
32 kbps| 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50
64 kbps| 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50 2.50
128 kbps| 1.41 1.41 1.41 1.41 1.41 1.41 1.41 1.41
256 kbps| 0.70 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07
512 kbps| 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.35
1 Mbps| 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18
2 Mbps| 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.09
4 Mbps| 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04
Figure 1: Average RTCP Reporting Interval (seconds)
These numbers assume a single-source multicast channel with a single
active sender, which the rules in RFC 3550 section 6.3 give a fixed
fraction of the RTCP bandwidth irrespective of the number of
receivers. It can be seen that they are sufficient for lip-
synchronisation without excessive delay, but might be viewed as
having too much latency for synchronising parts of a layered video
stream.
The RTCP interval is randomised in the usual manner, so the minimum
synchronisation delay will be half these intervals, and the maximum
delay will be 1.5 times these intervals. Note also that these RTCP
intervals are calculated assuming perfect knowledge of the number of
members in the session. In practice, an implementation will have
only limited knowledge of the size of the session when joining, and
will likely send its initial report early compared to these values,
following the RTCP reconsideration rules.
2.1.3. Any Source Multicast (ASM) Sessions
(tbd)
For ASM sessions, the fraction of members that are senders plays an
important role, and imply more variation in average RTCP reporting
interval.
2.1.4. Discussion
For unicast sessions, the existing RTCP SR-based mechanism allows for
immediate synchronisation, provided the initial RTCP packet is not
lost.
For SSM sessions, the initial synchronisation delay is sufficient for
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lip-synchronisation, but may be larger than desired for some layered
codecs. The rationale for not sending immediate RTCP packets for
multicast groups is to avoid implosion of requests when large numbers
of members simultaneously join the group ("flash crowd"). This is
not an issue for SSM senders, since there can be at most one sender,
so it might be desirable to allow SSM senders to send an immediate
RTCP SR on joining a session (as is currently allowed for unicast
sessions, which also don't suffer from the implosion problem). SSM
receivers using unicast feedback would not be allowed to send
immediate RTCP. This would be a change to RFC 3550, if accepted.
For ASM session... (tbd)
In all cases, it is possible that the initial RTCP SR packet is lost.
In this case, the receiver will not be able to synchronise the media
until the reporting interval has passed, and the next RTCP SR packet
is sent. This is undesirable. Section 3.1 defines a new RTP/AVPF
transport layer feedback message to request an RTCP SR be generated,
allowing rapid resynchronisation in the case of packet loss.
2.2. Synchronisation for Late Joiners
Synchronisation between RTP sessions is potentially slower for late
joiners, than for participants present at the start of the session.
The reasons for this are two-fold:
1. Many of the optimisations that allow rapid transmission of RTCP
SR packets apply only at the start of a session. This implies
that a new participant may have to wait a complete RTCP reporting
interval for each session before receiving the necessary data to
synchronise media streams. This might potentially take several
seconds, depending on the configured session bandwidth and the
number of participants.
2. Additional synchronisation delay comes from the nature of the
RTCP timing rules. Packets are generated on average once per
reporting interval but with the exact transmission times being
randomised +/- 50% to avoid synchronisation of reports. This is
important to avoid network congestion in multicast sessions, but
does mean that the timing of RTCP SR reports for different RTP
sessions aren't synchronised. Accordingly, a receiver must
estimate the skew on the NTP-format clock in order to align RTP
timestamps across sessions. This estimation is an essential part
of an RTP synchronisation implementation, and can be done exactly
given sufficient reports. Collecting sufficient RTCP SR data to
perform this estimation, however, may require several reports,
further increasing the synchronisation delay.
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These delays are likely an issue for tuning in to an ongoing
multicast RTP session, or for video switching MCUs.
3. Reducing RTP Synchronisation Delays
Two backwards compatible RTP extensions are defined to reduce the
possible synchronisation delay: a repid resynchronisation request
message, and RTP header extensions that can convey synchronisation
metadata in-band.
3.1. Rapid Resynchronisation Request
The general format of an RTP/AVPF transport layer feedback message is
shown below.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|V=2|P| FMT | PT=RTPFB=205 | length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| SSRC of packet sender |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| SSRC of media source |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
: Feedback Control Information (FCI) :
: :
A new feedback message type, RTCP-SR-REQ, is defined with FMT = XXX.
(the next available FMT is 5?) This MAY be sent to indicate that a
receiver is unable to synchronise media streams, and desires that the
media source send an RTCP SR packet as soon as possible (within the
constraints of RTCP the early feedback rules). On receipt of this,
the media source SHOULD generate an RTCP SR packet as soon as
possible within the RTCP early feedback rules. That RTCP SR packet
MAY be sent as a non-compound RTCP packet, if this has been
negotiated.
The Feedback Control Information (FCI) part of the packet is emtpy.
The SSRC of packet sender indicates the member that is unable to
synchronise media streams, while the SSRC of media source indicates
the sender of the media it is unable to synchronise. The lenght MUST
equal 2.
(tbd: discuss what happens if the feedback target is not co-located
with the sender)
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3.2. In-band Delivery of Synchronisation Metadata
The RTP header extension mechanism defined in [4] can be adopted to
carry an OPTIONAL NTP format wall clock timestamp in RTP data
packets. If such a timestamp is included, it MUST correspond to the
same time instant as the RTP timestamp in the packet's header, and
MUST be derived from the same clock used to generate the NTP format
timestamps included in RTCP SR packets. The receiver can use the
information provided as input to the synchronisation algorithm, as-if
an RTCP SR packet had been received for the flow.
Two variants are defined for this header extension. The first
variant extends the RTP header with a 64 bit NTP timestamp format
timestamp as defined in [5]. The second variant carries the lower 24
bit part of the Seconds of a NTP timestamp format timestamp and the
32 bit of the Fraction of a NTP timestamp format timestamp. The
formats of the two variants are shown below.
Variant A (16 byte) of the NTP header extension:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|V=2|P|1| CC |M| PT | sequence number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+R
| timestamp |T
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+P
| synchronization source (SSRC) identifier |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| 0xBE | 0xDE | length=3 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+E
| ID-A | L=7 | NTP timestamp format - Seconds (bit 0-23) |x
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+t
|NTP Sec.(24-31)| NTP timestamp format - Fraction(bit 0-23) |n
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NTP Frc.(24-31)| 0 (pad) | 0 (pad) | 0 (pad) |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| payload data |
| .... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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Variant B (12 byte) of the NTP header extension:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|V=2|P|1| CC |M| PT | sequence number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+R
| timestamp |T
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+P
| synchronization source (SSRC) identifier |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| 0xBE | 0xDE | length=2 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+E
| ID-B | L=6 | NTP timestamp format - Seconds (bit 8-31) |x
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+t
| NTP timestamp format - Fraction (bit 0-31) |n
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| payload data |
| .... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
An NTP timestamp format timestamp MAY be included on any RTP packets
the sender chooses, but it is RECOMMENDED when performing timestamp
based decoding order recovery for layered codecs transported in
multiple RTP flows, as discussed in Section 4. This header extension
MAY be also sent on the RTP packets corresponding to a video random
access point, and on the associated audio packets, to allow rapid
synchronisation for late joiners and in video switching scenarios.
In all cases, irrespective of whether in-band NTP timestamp format
timestamps are included or not, regular RTCP SR packets MUST be sent
to provide backwards compatibility with receivers that synchronize
RTP flows according to [1]. The sender reports are also required to
receive the upper 8 bit of the Seconds of the NTP timestamp format
timestamp not included in the NTP header extension.
3.3. Signalling
The signaling of using the NTP header extension defined in
Section 3.2 MUST be applied as defined in [4].
(tbd - URI, ID-A and ID-B for the NTP header extension need to be
defined, e.g. URI: "a=extmap:ID-A
urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:ntp-64"] "a=extmap:ID-B
urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:ntp-56"]
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4. Application to Decoding Order Recovery in Layered Codecs
Based on the timestamp contained each RTP data packet, and the
mapping to an NTP-format wall-clock time, a decoding order recovery
process is applied if a media as result of a layered coding process
is transported in multiple RTP flows. This recovers the decoding
order of media frames or samples at the receiver. Especially when
transporting layered video, the decoding order recovery process is
not straight forward. In this section, we provide guidance on how to
use RTP/NTP timing information for decoding order recovery.
4.1. Problem description
One option for decoding order recovery in layered codecs is to use
the NTP (sample presentation) timestamps to reorder data of the same
layered media transported in different RTP flows. For a timestamp-
based decoding order recovery process, it is crucial to allow exact
alignment of media frames respectively samples using the NTP timing
information. In the presence of clock skew, it may not be possible
to derive exact matching NTP timestamps using the NTP wallclock in
each RTP flow's RTCP sender reports. This is due to the fact that
RTCP sender reports are not send at the same point of time in the
multiple RTP flows transporting data of the same layered media. If
the RTCP SR packets are not send at the same time, they therefore do
not contain the same NTP wallclock timestamp. If there is a skew
present in the clock used for NTP wallclock timestamp generation,
using different wallclock timestamps for the same sampling instance
in the RTP flow inevitably leads to non-matching NTP timestamps
generated from RTP timestamps and wallclock timestamp in the multiple
RTP flows. In order to allow a common and straight forward
timestamp-based decoding order recovery process, it is important to
guarantee exact matching of NTP timestamps. Thus in the presence of
non-perfect clocks, which should be the normal case, an additional
mechanism shall be used. If synchronously in all flows inserting
header extensions as defined in Section 3.2, an exact inter-flow
alignment of NTP timestamps can be guaranteed with the prerequisite
that only the NTP timestamps are used when synchronously present in
all the RTP flows in question.
4.2. Use of RTP Header Extensions for Synchronisation
The NTP header extension SHOULD be used with a layered, multi-
description, or multi-view codec, to provide exact matching of NTP
timestamps between layers, descriptions, or views trasnported in
different RTP flows to allow timestamp-based decoding order recovery.
If the NTP header extension is inserted for RTP flows transporting
samples or parts of samples of the same layered media, the NTP header
extension SHALL be included at least once in each of the RTP flows of
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the same media for the sampling time instance of an insertion of a
NTP header extension and such synchronously inserted NTP header
extensions SHALL contain the same NTP timestamp. The frequency of
inserting NTP header extensions in the RTP flows is up to the sender.
Note: If the decoding order of RTP flows is given by any means (as
e.g., by mechanism defined in [6]), the NTP timestamp provided by the
header extension allows to collect data of the same sample from the
RTP flows, forming the sample decoding order.
It is RECOMMENDED that the receiver uses for timestamp-based decoding
order recovery the NTP timestamps provided in the RTP NTP header
extensions only, if such extensions are present for the RTP flows.
Section 4 gives further details about the timestamp-based decoding
order recovery.
Note: The NTP header insertion as described above allows the receiver
to find the corresponding sample of the layered media or parts
thereof in all the RTP flows at the point of the NTP header extension
insertion. This guarantees that any clock skew present in the NTP
timestamp generation process based on RTCP sender reports is avoided,
thus this approach allows directly comparing NTP timestamps of the
RTP flows. Furthermore, this approach solves the possible problem of
clock skews identified for the NI-T mode as defined in [7]. Such an
NTP header extension insertion is only effective for clock skew
elimination, if such insertion is applied in all RTP flows of the
layered media at the same time and if the receiver uses such
synchronously sent NTP timestamps for the decoding order recovery
process only. This may require the insertion of extra packets in
some of the RTP flows, since in layered video codecs not all sampling
instances may be present in all the flows. If such a header
extension is included in all flows at a sampling time instance, the
NTP timestamps for samples following in decoding order the NTP header
insertion point can be constructed using the RTP timestamps and
identical reference NTP timestamps in the NTP header extension in all
RTP flows. It should be noted that the frequency of inserting the
NTP header extension is crucial in presence of clock skew, since the
points of insertion may be the only points for a receiver to start
the decoding order recovery.
4.3. Timestamp based decoding order recovery
If parts or complete samples as result of a layered coding process
are transported as different RTP flows as different RTP streams
and/or as different RTP sessions, a decoding order recovery process
is required to reorder the samples or parts of samples received.
Such mechanism may be based on the NTP presentation timestamp which
can be derived from the RTP timestamp using the NTP wallclock
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provided in the RTCP sender report packets. In order to guarantee
the exact NTP alignment, the RTP NTP header extension as defined in
this memo in Section 3.2 allows the receiver to tune in before the
reception of such a sender report if the header extension is earlier
provided in the RTP flow or it may be the only way to allow correct
decoding order recovery based on exact matching of NTP timestamps in
case of the presence of clock skew in the clock used for generating
the NTP wallclock.
Since typically for layered video codecs as, e.g. SVC [7], the
decoding order is not equal to the presentation order of the media
samples, media samples or parts of media samples cannot be simply
ordered according to the presentation timestamp order. For this
reason, if transporting media samples or parts of media samples of a
layered, multi-view or multi description codec in different RTP
flows, the following rules SHOULD be kept for sending such flows:
Note: The following rules are typically kept for layered audio
codecs, which allows using the same algorithm for decoding order
recovery of audio samples.
Terminology: Following the decoding order of RTP flows as described
above, an RTP flow containing sample data which is required to be
accessed and/or decoded before decoding a second sample data of
another RTP flow is called a lower RTP flow with respect to the
second RTP flow. A second RTP flow, which requires for the decoding
process accessing and/or decoding the sample data of the lower RTP
flow is called the higher RTP flow. The lowest RTP flow is the flow,
which does not require the presence of any other data.
o The decoding order of media samples or part of the media samples
transported in different RTP flows SHOULD be derivable by any
means. This can be accomplished, e.g. by using the mechanisms
defined in [6] if the sample data or parts of the sample data are
transported in different RTP sessions or by any other means.
o For each two RTP flows the following rules SHOULD be true in order
to allow decoding order recovery based on matching NTP timestamps
present in the different RTP flows:
1. The order of the RTP samples within an RTP flow is equal to
the decoding order.
2. A higher RTP flow contains all the same sampling instances of
the lower RTP flow. A higher RTP flow may contain additional
sampling instances.
Note: In some cases, it may be required to add packets in higher RTP
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flows in order to satisfy the second rule above. This may be
achieved by placing empty RTP packets (containing padding data only)
or by other payload means as, e.g. the Empty NAL unit packet as
defined in [7].
If a packet must be inserted for satisfying the above rule, the NTP
timestamp of such an inserted packet MUST be set equal to the NTP
timestamp of a packet of the access unit present in any lower RTP
flow and the lowest RTP flow. This is easy to accomplish if the
packet can be inserted at the time of the RTP flow generation, since
the NTP timestamp must be the same for the inserted packet and the
packet of the corresponding sample.
The above rules allow the receiver to process the data of the RTP
flows as follows:
o Go through all received RTP flows starting with the highest RTP
flow and aggregate the sample data or parts of the sample data
with the same NTP timestamp in the order of RTP flows, starting
from the lowest RTP flow up to the highest RTP flow received, to
the sample with the NTP timestamp present in the highest RTP flow.
The NTP timestamps MAY be derived using RTCP sender reports or MAY
be directly taken from the NTP header extension. The order of RTP
flows may e.g. be indicated by mechanisms as defined in [6] or any
other implicit or explicit means. Repeat the aforementioned
process for each different NTP timestamp present in the highest
RTP flow.
Informative example: The example shown in Figure 3 refers to three
RTP flows A, B and C containing a layered, a multi-view or a multi-
description media stream. In the example, the dependency signalling
as defined in [6] indicates that flow A is the lowest RTP flow, B is
the first higher RTP flow and depends on A, and C is the second
higher RTP flow corresponding to flow A and depends on A and B. A
picture coding prediction structure is used that results in samples
present in higher flows but not present in all lower flows. Flow A
has the lowest frame rate and Flow B and C have the same but higher
frame rate. The figure shows parts of video samples contained in RTP
packets which are stored in the de-jittering buffer at the receiver
for de-packetization. The parts of the video samples are already re-
ordered according to their RTP sequence number order. The figure
indicates for the received sample parts the decoding order within the
sessions, as well as the associated media (NTP) timestamps
("TS[..]"). Parts share the same media timestamp TS, which is shown
at the bottom of the figure. Note that the timestamps are not in
increasing order since, in this example, the decoding order is
different from the output/display order.
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The process first proceeds to the sample parts associated with the
first media timestamp TS[1] present in the highest flow C and
removes/ignores all preceding (in decoding order) sample parts to
sample parts with TS[1] in each of the de-jittering buffers of RTP
flows A, B, and C. Then, starting from flow C, the first media
timestamp available in decoding order (TS [1]) is selected and sample
parts starting from RTP flow A, and flow B and C are placed in order
of the RTP flow dependency as indicated by mechanisms defined in [6]
(in the example for TS[1]: first flow B and then flow C into the
video sample AU(TS[1]) associated with media timestamp TS[1]. Then
the next media timestamp TS[3] in order of appearance in the highest
RTP flow C is processed and the process described above is repeated.
Note that there may be video samples with no sample parts present,
e.g., in the lowest RTP flow A (see, e.g., TS[1]). With TS[8], the
first video sample with sample parts present in all the RTP flows
appears in the buffers.
C: ------------(1)----(2)---(3)---(4)----(5)--(6)---(7)----(8)----
| | | | | | | | | |
B: -(1)---(2)--(3)----(4)---(5)---(6)----(7)--(8)---(9)---(10)----
| | | | | |
A: -------(1)---------------(2)---(3)---------------(4)----(5)----
--------------------------------------------------decoding order-->
TS: [4] [2] [1] [3] [8] [6] [5] [7] [12] [10]
Key:
A, B, C - RTP sessions
Integer values in "()"- Video sample/part of video sample decoding
order within RTP session
"|" - indicates corresponding samples / parts of
sample of the same video sample AU(TS[..])
in the RTP flows
Integer values in "[]"- media timestamp TS, sampling time
as derived from the NTP timestamp associated
with the video sample AU(TS[..]), consisting
of sample parts in the sessions above.
5. Security Considerations
The security considerations of the RTP specification [1] and RTP/AVPF
profile [2] apply. No additional security considerations apply due
to the RTP/AVPF rapid resynchronisation mechanism defined in
Section 3.1.
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6. IANA Considerations
(tbd - this needs to register the new RTP/AVPF transport layer
feedback packet type)
7. Acknowledgements
This memo has benefitted from discussions with numerous members of
the IETF AVT working group, including Magnus Westerlund, Randell
Jesup, and Jonathan Lennox. The header extension format of Variant A
in Section 3.2 was suggested by Dave Singer, matching a similar
mechanism specified by ISMA.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[1] Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V. Jacobson,
"RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications", STD 64,
RFC 3550, July 2003.
[2] Ott, J., Wenger, S., Sato, N., Burmeister, C., and J. Rey,
"Extended RTP Profile for Real-time Transport Control Protocol
(RTCP)-Based Feedback (RTP/AVPF)", RFC 4585, July 2006.
[3] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[4] Singer, D. and H. Desineni, "A General Mechanism for RTP Header
Extensions", RFC 5285, July 2008.
[5] Mills, D., "Network Time Protocol (Version 3) Specification,
Implementation", RFC 1305, March 1992.
[6] Schierl, T. and S. Wenger, "Signaling media decoding dependency
in Session Description Protocol (SDP)",
draft-ietf-mmusic-decoding-dependency-05 (work in progress),
November 2008.
8.2. Informative References
[7] Wenger, S., Wang, Y., Schierl, T., and A. Eleftheriadis, "RTP
Payload Format for SVC Video", draft-ietf-avt-rtp-svc-16 (work
in progress), December 2008.
[8] Casner, S., "Session Description Protocol (SDP) Bandwidth
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Modifiers for RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Bandwidth", RFC 3556,
July 2003.
[9] Rosenberg, J., "Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE): A
Protocol for Network Address Translator (NAT) Traversal for
Offer/Answer Protocols", draft-ietf-mmusic-ice-19 (work in
progress), October 2007.
[10] McGrew, D. and E. Rescorla, "Datagram Transport Layer Security
(DTLS) Extension to Establish Keys for Secure Real-time
Transport Protocol (SRTP)", draft-ietf-avt-dtls-srtp-05 (work
in progress), September 2008.
[11] Zimmermann, P., Johnston, A., and J. Callas, "ZRTP: Media Path
Key Agreement for Secure RTP", draft-zimmermann-avt-zrtp-13
(work in progress), January 2009.
Authors' Addresses
Colin Perkins
University of Glasgow
Department of Computing Science
Sir Alwyn Williams Building
Lilybank Gardens
Glasgow G12 8QQ
UK
Email: csp@csperkins.org
Thomas Schierl
Fraunhofer HHI
Einsteinufer 37
D-10587 Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49-30-31002-227
Email: thomas.schierl@hhi.fraunhofer.de
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