Explain stream oriented communication with suitable example. (May 16 / May 17) (10 Marks / 5 Marks )

Q. Explain stream oriented communication with suitable example. (May 16 / May 17) (10 Marks /  5 Marks)
Ans : 
Stream-oriented communication

• Support for continuous media.
• Streams in distributed systems
• Stream management
  

Continuous media

Observation
All communication facilities discussed so far are essentially based on a discrete, that is time-independent exchange of information

Continuous media
Characterized by the fact that values are time dependent:

1. Audio
2. Video 
3. Animations
4. Sensor data (temperature, pressure, etc.)
   

Transmission modes
Different timing guarantees with respect to data transfer:
Asynchronous: no restrictions with respect to when data is to be delivered
Synchronous: define a maximum end-to-end delay for individual data packets
Isochronous: define a maximum end-to-end delay and maximum delay variance (jitter is bounded)
 

Stream 
A (continuous) data stream is a connection-oriented communication facility that supports isochronous data transmission.Some common stream characteristics

•     Streams are unidirectional
•     There is generally a single source, and one or more sinks
•     Often, either the sink and/or source is a wrapper around hardware (e.g., camera, CD device,   TV monitor)
•     Simple stream: a single flow of data, e.g., audio or video
•     Complex stream: multiple data flows, e.g., stereo audio or combination audio/video