1.1 Glossary
This document uses the following terms:
codec: An algorithm that is used to convert media between digital formats, especially between raw media data and a format that is more suitable for a specific purpose. Encoding converts the raw data to a digital format. Decoding reverses the process.
contributing source (CSRC): A source of a stream of RTP packets that has contributed to the combined stream produced by an RTP mixer. The mixer inserts a list of the synchronization source (SSRC) identifiers of the sources that contributed to the generation of a particular packet into the RTP header of that packet. This list is called the CSRC list. An example application is audio conferencing where a mixer indicates all the talkers whose speech was combined to produce the outgoing packet, allowing the receiver to indicate the current talker, even though all the audio packets contain the same SSRC identifier (that of the mixer). See [RFC3550] section 3.
forward error correction (FEC): A process in which a sender uses redundancy to enable a receiver to recover from packet loss.
maximum transmission unit (MTU): The size, in bytes, of the largest packet that a given layer of a communications protocol can pass onward.
mixer: An intermediate system that receives a set of media streams of the same type, combines the media in a type-specific manner, and redistributes the result to each participant.
network byte order: The order in which the bytes of a multiple-byte number are transmitted on a network, most significant byte first (in big-endian storage). This may or may not match the order in which numbers are normally stored in memory for a particular processor.
padding: Bytes that are inserted in a data stream to maintain alignment of the protocol requests on natural boundaries.
Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP): A network transport protocol that provides end-to-end transport functions that are suitable for applications that transmit real-time data, such as audio and video, as described in [RFC3550].
RTP packet: A data packet consisting of the fixed RTP header, a possibly empty list of contributing sources, and the payload data. Some underlying protocols may require an encapsulation of the RTP packet to be defined. Typically one packet of the underlying protocol contains a single RTP packet, but several RTP packets can be contained if permitted by the encapsulation method. See [RFC3550] section 3.
RTP payload: The data transported by RTP in a packet, for example audio samples or compressed video data. For more information, see [RFC3550] section 3.
RTP session: An association among a set of participants who are communicating by using the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP), as described in [RFC3550]. Each RTP session maintains a full, separate space of Synchronization Source (SSRC) identifiers.
RTVideo: A video stream that carries an RTVC1 bit stream.
synchronization source (SSRC): The source of a stream of RTP packets, identified by a 32-bit numeric SSRC identifier carried in the RTP header so as not to be dependent upon the network address. All packets from a synchronization source form part of the same timing and sequence number space, so a receiver groups packets by synchronization source for playback. Examples of synchronization sources include the sender of a stream of packets derived from a signal source such as a microphone or a camera, or an RTP mixer. A synchronization source may change its data format (for example, audio encoding) over time. The SSRC identifier is a randomly chosen value meant to be globally unique within a particular RTP session. A participant need not use the same SSRC identifier for all the RTP sessions in a multimedia session; the binding of the SSRC identifiers is provided through RTCP. If a participant generates multiple streams in one RTP session, for example from separate video cameras, each MUST be identified as a different SSRC. See [RFC3550] section 3.
universally unique identifier (UUID): A 128-bit value. UUIDs can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very persistent objects in cross-process communication such as client and server interfaces, manager entry-point vectors, and RPC objects. UUIDs are highly likely to be unique. UUIDs are also known as globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) and these terms are used interchangeably in the Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the UUID. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] must be used for generating the UUID.
video frame: A single still image that is shown as part of a quick succession of images in a video.
MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.