Real Time Media Flow Protocol
Encyclopedia
Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) is a proprietary protocol
Proprietary protocol
In telecommunications, a proprietary protocol is a communications protocol owned by a single organization or individual.-Enforcement:Proprietors may enforce restrictions through patents and by keeping the protocol specification a trade secret...

 developed by Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

. RTMFP
enables low latency UDP
User Datagram Protocol
The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

 streamings and direct peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...

 communication between multiple Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

 Players
and applications built using the Adobe AIR framework for the delivery of rich, live, real‐time
communication. You can use this from Flash Player 10.0.

Operation

By using RTMFP, applications that rely on live, real‐time communications, such social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

s and multi‐user games will be able to deliver higher quality communication solutions. RTMFP enables end‐users to connect and communicate directly with each other using their computer’s
microphone and webcam. RTMFP will not support file or document sharing. This solution enhances
the current functionality in the Flash Player by creating a higher quality solution that will perform better regardless of variations in the network

Benefits

RTMFP will reduce the bandwidth costs for direct, live, real‐time communication solutions, such as audio and video chat
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...

 and multi‐player games. Because RTMFP flows data between the end‐user
clients and not the server, bandwidth is not being used at the server so solutions are less expensive to scale.
RTMFP also increases the speed of delivery through the use of UDP
User Datagram Protocol
The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

. UDP is a more efficient (but less reliable) way
to send video and audio data over the Internet that reduces the penalties associated with missing, dropped, or out of order packets.
RTMFP has two features that may help to mitigate the effects of connection errors.

Rapid Connection Restore: Connections are re‐established quickly after brief outages. For
example, when a wireless network
Wireless network
Wireless network refers to any type of computer network that is not connected by cables of any kind. It is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and enterprise installations avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment...

 connection experiences a dropout. After reconnection,
the connection has full capabilities instantly.

IP Mobility: Active network peer sessions are maintained even if a client changes to a new
IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...

. For example, when a laptop on a wireless network is plugged into a wired
connection and receives a new network address.

Difference between RTMP and RTMFP

The principle difference is how the protocols communicate over the network. RTMFP is based on
User Datagram Protocol
User Datagram Protocol
The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

 (UDP), whereas RTMP
Real Time Messaging Protocol
Real Time Messaging Protocol was initially a proprietary protocol developed by Macromedia for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet, between a Flash player and a server...

 is based on Transmission Control Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...

 (TCP).
UDP‐based protocols have some specific advantages over TCP‐based protocols when delivering live streaming media
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

, such as decreased latency and overhead, and greater tolerance for dropped/missing packets, at the cost of decreased reliability.
Unlike RTMP, RTMFP also supports sending data directly from one Adobe Flash Player to another,
without going through a server. A server‐side connection will always be required to establish the initial connection between the end‐users and can be used to provide server‐side data execution or gateways into other systems. The user of a Flash Media Server
Adobe Flash Media Server
Flash Media Server is a proprietary data and media server from Adobe Systems . This server works with the Flash Player runtime to create media driven, multiuser RIAs . The server uses ActionScript 1, an ECMAScript based scripting language, for server-side logic...

 will also be required to authorize network address lookup and NAT traversal
NAT traversal
NAT traversal is a general term for techniques that establish and maintain Internet protocol connections traversing network address translation gateways. Network address translation breaks end-to-end connectivity. Intercepting and modifying traffic can only be performed transparently in the...

 services for the clients to prevent Flash Player from being used in an unmanaged way.

Application-level multicast

Flash Player 10.0 allowed only one-to-one communication for P2P, but from 10.1 application-level multicast is allowed. Flash Player finds appropriate distribution route (overlay network
Overlay network
An overlay network is a computer network which is built on the top of another network. Nodes in the overlay can be thought of as being connected by virtual or logical links, each of which corresponds to a path, perhaps through many physical links, in the underlying network...

), and can distribute to the group, which is connected by P2P.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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