This paper proposes a scheme for joint synchronization between stored media with interactive control and live media in multicast communications. We deal with visual search control, such as fast-forward and fast-reverse, as interactive control. The proposed scheme enables visual search by enhancing the virtual-time rendering (VTR) media synchronization algorithm, which the authors previously proposed, and adjusts the timing of changing the visual search mode among destinations by carrying out group synchronization control. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of the scheme by experiment.

This paper presents results of subjective assessment of the media synchronization quality in the virtual-time rendering (VTR) media synchronization algorithm. For the assessment, stored voice and video streams were transmitted as two separate transport streams from a source to a destination on various traffic conditions in an experimental system. At the destination, they were output after synchronization control. We subjectively assessed the quality of media synchronization in a systematic way. This paper examines the effects of the difference between methods of recovery from asynchrony on the media synchronization quality. The paper also clarifies the relationships between the subjective and objective performance measures. Furthermore, it examines the effect of the difference in scene between media streams and that of the modification of the target output time on the media synchronization quality.

This paper proposes a scheme for synchronization of stored video and audio streams in PHS. A video stream of H. 263 is transmitted over a PHS channel with ARQ control, while an audio stream of 32 kbit/s ADPCM is sent on another channel without any control. In order to preserve the temporal constraints within the video stream as well as the relationship between the video and audio streams, we adopt a new control scheme which modifies the target output time according to the amount of video data in the receive-buffer. Through simulation we assess the characteristics of this scheme in both random and burst error environments and confirm the effectiveness of the scheme.