Implementation of the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) 
	for Software-based Video Conferencing

Video conferencing applications typically require expensive 
dedicated hardware to perform compression and decompression 
calculations.   Those that do not require special hardware 
do not offer satisfactory compression ratios and require 
more processing power than desktop computers can provide.  
The CU2/ICU2 compressor/decompressor (CODEC), developed by 
Professor Toby Berger and Yi-Jen Chiu, is a fast software-based 
algorithm that performs minimal calculations without the 
aid of any special hardware.  

Even with the smaller compressed frame size, a key factor is 
how efficiently these frames are transported.  TCP/IP, a 
commonly used protocol, is not suitable for real time video 
conferencing because it has high latency, especially in 
congested networks.  RTP, an emerging standard for transporting 
time sensitive data, offers the low latency and high speed 
required even by compressed video.

We have developed the basic schemes for setting up the connection, 
then segmenting, transporting and reassembling individual frames.  
We have implemented RTP, RTCP, and CU2/ICU2 application-specific 
protocols.  The finished code will be integrated into a 
CU2/ICU2-based Windows video conferencing application also 
currently under development in the DISCOVER Lab.