Software Defined Media: Virtualization of Audio-Visual Services
This work addresses the need for scalable and innovative audio-visual services in smart buildings and cities, but it is incremental as it builds on existing software-defined networking concepts.
The paper introduces the Software Defined Media (SDM) architecture to virtualize networked audio-visual services, targeting object-based media and smart environments, and implements a prototype that effectively provides 3D audio reproducibility and interactiveness for applications.
Internet-native audio-visual services are witnessing rapid development. Among these services, object-based audio-visual services are gaining importance. In 2014, we established the Software Defined Media (SDM) consortium to target new research areas and markets involving object-based digital media and Internet-by-design audio-visual environments. In this paper, we introduce the SDM architecture that virtualizes networked audio-visual services along with the development of smart buildings and smart cities using Internet of Things (IoT) devices and smart building facilities. Moreover, we design the SDM architecture as a layered architecture to promote the development of innovative applications on the basis of rapid advancements in software-defined networking (SDN). Then, we implement a prototype system based on the architecture, present the system at an exhibition, and provide it as an SDM API to application developers at hackathons. Various types of applications are developed using the API at these events. An evaluation of SDM API access shows that the prototype SDM platform effectively provides 3D audio reproducibility and interactiveness for SDM applications.