Colin Perkins

RTP Multiplexing Architecture (-00)

Posted on 24 October 2011 in category rtcweb

RTP has always been a protocol that supports multiple participants each sending their own media streams in an RTP session. To do this, it relies on three main multiplexing points: RTP session, SSRC, and Payload Type. However, most uses of RTP to date have been simpler, often with only a single SSRC in each direction, and a single RTP session per media type. More recently, however, the more complex use cases have started to be more common, and hence more guidance on how to use RTP in these cases is needed. This new draft analyzes a number of cases and discusses the usage of the various multiplexing points and the need for functionality when defining RTP/RTCP extensions that use multiple RTP streams and multiple RTP sessions. This developed from the RTCweb discussion of session multiplexing, but is heading in a more generally applicable direction, and may impact the IETF CLUE working group, as well as general RTP sessions involving multiple participants and complex topologies.

• Magnus Westerlund, Bo Burman, and Colin Perkins, RTP Multiplexing Architecture, Internet Engineering Task Force, October 2011, Work in progress (draft-westerlund-avtcore-multiplex-architecture-00.txt).