In audio/video streaming, clients request compressed audio/video files that reside on servers. These servers canbe
ordinary Wed servers or can be special streaming servers tailored for the audio/video streaming application. The real-time
protocol (RTP) is a public-domain standard for encapsulating such segments. The real-time streaming protocol (RTSP)
is a public-domain protocol for providing user interactivity.
Audio/video playout is not integrated directly into today's Web clients, a separate helper application is required for
playing out the audio/video. Helper applications are often called media players. The media player performs serveral
functions, including the following:
Decompression - Audio/video is almost always compressed to save disk storage and network bandwidth.
Jitter removal - Packet jitter is the variability of source-to-destination delays of packets within the same packet
stream.
Error correction - Due to unpredictable congestion in the Internet, a fraction fo packets in the packet stream can be
lost.
The media player has a graphical user interface with control knobs. This is the actual interface that the user
interacts with.
