Development of a

Multipurpose Audio
Transmission System
on the Internet

Takashi Kishida
Graduate School of Information Sciences,
Hiroshima City University, Japan
 Overview
 Introduction
 Purpose
 Audio communication scenes
 Implementation
 Evaluations
 Conclusion

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 Background
Spreading Broadband networks
― 　 Real-time audio transmission is
popular

Various types of audio

communications have been
attempted. ― 　 Distance lecture, Distance
chorus etc.

We should consider requirements depending

on each scene.
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 A problem in the Audio
Transmission
 Considerations in audio communication scenes
 Robustness


Reliability audio transmission

An ability to recover packet losses on networks
 Short delay

End-to-end delays include processing delays of an
end node and transfer delays on a network
Ex.) the case of about 150 ms
delays
Trade-off between robustness and delays

Difficulty to realize both requirements at the

same time
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 Purpose
 Consideration on conditions of
requirements for each audio
communication scenes

 Development of a multipurpose
audio transmission system to
adapt to various scenes

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 Classification
Distance Audio Distance
Scenes chorus conference
Requirements lecture
Direction Many to Many to One to
many many many
Synchronizatio Very High High Low
n
Allowable Less than Less than Any
delay 100 ms 400ms
Robustness ITU-T G.114
Low Middle High
Main Audio Smooth Reliable
requirement synchronizati interaction transmission
on
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(Short delay)
 Audio Communication Scenes
End-to-end delay

Distance Lecture
400ms

Audio conference
Conversation
100ms
Distance
Chorus

0ms Low High

Robustness
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 MRAT （ Multipurpose RAT)
 MRAT was developed on
the basis of RAT
 RAT(Robust Audio Tool) is
one of mbone tools.
 MRAT has three modes
to adapt to various
scenes
 Chorus mode
　 ・・・
shorter delays
 Conversation mode

 Broadcast mode

2003.6.19 ・・・ high

Human.Society@Internet Conference 8
 Relation of Audio
Communication Scenes and
modes of MRAT
End-to-end Delay

Broadcast
Distance Lecture
400msmode
High robustness

Audio conference
Conversation
mode Conversation
Original RAT
100ms
Distance
Chorus These two
Chorus
mode modes are
Shorter delays added.
0ms Low High
Robustness
2003.6.19 Human.Society@Internet Conference 9
 Chorus mode
ｰ This mode is set up as to achieve shorter
delay

To realize delays less than about

100ms

 We tuned buffering parameters of

an audio device.

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 Read length variation

This elapsed time related to delays.

The2003.6.19
longer elapsed time is, the longer
Human.Society@Internet Conferencedelays are. 11
 Evaluation of cushion

Cushion was decreased

to about 26 ms from 90
ms by changing
parameters.

Cushion is close related to buffering time and

defined by elapsed time.MRAT realizes delays of
2003.6.19 (Cushion 70ms.
+ An additional
Human.Society@Internet processing delay12=
Conference
 Broadcast mode
ー Broadcast mode is set up as to achieve robustness.
To achieve robustness
　 FEC （ Forward Error


Correction
sender ） redundant packet each some
generating

packets
receiver
recovery from redundant packets in the

case ofAdvantage
packet losses
in a real-time application
We use Reed-Solomon block code
Reed-Solomon block code has advantage

in burst errors

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 FEC with Reed-Solomon code

Audio data
packet
・・・
12
packets
15
Tran packets
smit Redundant
packet
3 packets

Head data
er Reed-Solomon （ 15,12 ） block code
This code has an ability
2003.6.19
of recovery from less than 3 packets
Human.Society@Internet Conference 14
 State of Implementation
 All modes are completed
 Almost all audio codec are
implemented in Broadcast mode

 Confirmation of implementation

CPU PentiumⅢ 1.0GHz ～ PentiumⅡ300MHz

OS Vine Linux 2.1,Vine Linux2.1.5,Vine
Soundcard Linux2.5
SoundBlaster Live! Value

2003.6.19 Human.Society@Internet Conference 15

 Evaluations of MRAT
 Measurement of delays on each
mode
 FEC Performance measurement of
Broadcast mode
 Practical experiments
 Distance Chorus using Chorus mode
 Distance seminar using Broadcast
mode

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 Experimental environment on
delays
Recording PC
We measured the
difference of delays
(a) Sound of (b) Sound
between (a) and (b).
metronome via Host B
Record Record

Metronom Host A Host B

e Transmit

Ethernet
CPU PentiumⅢ CPU PentiumⅢ 　
600MHz
100Mbps 1GHz
2003.6.19 Human.Society@Internet Conference 17
 Measurement of delays
Mode Delays Defined delay
Broadcast
１４３ [ms] any
(15,11)
Broadcast
１３８ [ms] any
(15,12)
Broadcast
１３８ [ms] any
(15,13)
Conversatio Less than 400
１３２ [ms]
n [ms]
Less than 100
Chorus ７２ [ms] [ms]
These satisfy all conditions of the defined delay in each
mode
These values are almost same as processing delay.
Transfer delay in Human.Society@Internet
2003.6.19
practical networks is added.
Conference 18
 FEC Performance measurement of
Broadcast mode
Loss
CPU PentiumⅡ 　
Packet loss generator
300MHz
generated
OS Vine Linux2.1
1,2,4,6,8,10
%

Ethernet
100Mbps
Measure after
decoding RS
codes
Host A Host Experimental
B
values
CPU PentiumⅢ 　
We compared
600MHz
the experimental values
CPU PentiumⅢ
1GHz
　 and
the
OS theoretical
Vine
2003.6.19
values
Linux2.5 Human.Society@Internet Conference
OS Vine Linux2.1 19
 Result
5
The theoretical
Packet values
loss (15,13)Experiment
rate can aland
value thefrom
be decreased experimental values
11% to less than 1
Packet loss rate after applying FEC (%)

% by
are using (15,13)T
almost FEC.
the heoretical value
same. (15 ，
(15,12)Experiment al value
4
(15,12)T heoretical value 13)
(15,11)Experiment al value
(15,11)T heoretical value
3

2
(15 ，
12)
1

(15 ，
0
11)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Packet loss rate before applying FEC (%)

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 12
Packet loss 11 ％ non-
10 FEC
Result
～
～ ～
～
5
(15,13)Experiment al value
Packet loss rate after applying FEC (%)

(15,13)T heoretical value

(15,12)Experiment al value
(15 ，
4
(15,12)T heoretical value 13)
(15,11)Experiment al value
(15,11)T heoretical value
3

2
(15 ，
12)
1

Using RS- (15 ，

0
FEC(15,11) 11)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Packet loss rate before applying FEC (%)

2003.6.19 Human.Society@Internet Conference 21
 Distance Seminar using
Broadcast mode
Saga
Univ.

Hiroshima City Univ. – Saga

Experimen Jitter ： Univ. 4ms

tal IP Avg. packet loss ：

　　　　
Network 0.000058 %

(ATM RTT ： 14.8ms

Hiroshima City Univ. 45Mbps)

Requirement
Hiroshima-city Univ.
bandwidth
Audio ：　
-- Hiroshima Univ.
MRAT(160Kbps)
Jitter ： 6ms
Movie ：　
Avg. packet loss ：
Mpeg2ts(5Mbps)
0.120% Hiroshima Univ.
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RTT ： Conference
8.5ms 22
 Error recovery of packet
losses using Broadcast mode
7.0%
Before applying FEC
6.0% After applying FEC
Packet loss rate (%)

5.0%

4.0%
3.0%
2.0%
1.0%
0.0%
0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (sec)
The results
Packet lossesofare
error recovery
almost recoveredfor only by 100 seconds
using
as a typical
broadcast part during the seminar
mode
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 Distance
Chorus
Hakushima Elementary School
(Main melody)

Accompanime
nt
Accompanime Hiroshima City Univ
+Subntmelody
Main Experimental IP Accompanime
melody network nt
70 ～ 10Mbps, wide
75ms Sub area Ethernet Main+Sub
melod melody
y Accompanimen Requirement 512 kbps
Accompaniment bandwidth
t
+Main melody
Transfer delay 2.1 ms
Minami-Kanon Elementary Jitter 7 ms
(Sub melody)
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 Conclusion
 Classification of audio communication
scenes
 Development of a multipurpose audio
transmission system, MRAT, and its
evaluation
 Some practical experiments such as a
distance chorus at multi-points and
distance seminars

 Our system can be used in multiple

audio communication scenes.
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 Future Problems
 New applications using each mode
 Dynamic and adaptive changing of
three modes depending on the
requirements

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 Scalability of Distance Chorus
The most
 How wide area to ideal
realize distance situation
chorus?
 Light propagation:
21000kmthis
Considering in restriction,
70ms distance chorus
is not realized in the worldwide on the
Internet

 We think practical
chorus is in
Metropolitan network
within an area of a
few hundreds
kilometers.It’s realizable as a regional
2003.6.19 network
Human.Society@Internet Conference 27
 Bandwidth of MRAT
Encoding Bandwidth Bandwidth of
RS encode After RS encode
[kpbs]
[kbps]
Linear-16 512 ○ 640
μ-law 256 ○ 320
A-law 256 ○ 320
G726-40 160 ○ 200
G726-40 128 ○ 160
G726-40 96 ○ 120
G726-40 64 ○ 80
DVI 128 ○ 160
VDVI 128 × 160
GSM 52.8 ○ 66
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 The quality of sound
comparison of MRAT and RAT

The detected number of

noise
MRAT(Broadcast mode) 3.4
RAT 36.4

This is the result that the noise of MRAT and RAT

was measured.
FFT was used for the measurement.

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 To realize the Distance
Chorus

accompanimen
t
Ideal tolerant delay
70ms
Main
melody

Sub
melody
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 Study of burst errors
We use Reed-Solomon (15,11) code


(15 packets in 1
block)
― During distance seminar
block numbers of recovery
blocks ＝　 99.9584
%
All block numbers
It could be almost recovered at distance
seminar.
We think this is adequate value.
2003.6.19 Human.Society@Internet Conference 31
 End-to-end delay bounds

Best medium
150m 400m
s s

ITU-T G.114 ITU-T G.114

150ms 400ms
Delay not Perceived “Natural”
In most cases Interaction

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 Where can you download?
 You can get MRAT here

http://www.mame.csi2.net/mrat/frame.ht

sorry this page is Japanese only…

I’ll make English page from now.
Wait a minute.

2003.6.19 Human.Society@Internet Conference 33