A MS-Windows software tool for multimedia e-mail in local area networks

Abstract

We propose a MS-Windows based software system for multimedia e-mail in a LAN like Ethernet (10Base-T), so-called 'nonguaranteed QoS LAN'. The proposed software system integrates several functions in the MS-Windows based graphical environment, such as: playing and recording of audio and video signals; speech compression/decompression by using a software implementation of the USA FED STD 1016 CELP 4800 b/s speech coding standard; video compression/decompression by using a software implementation of the ITU-T H.261 p/spl times/64 kb/s standard algorithm; and a part of the system that provides transportation of compressed or uncompressed data over the network. The system enables the sending of short uncompressed multimedia messages (in WAV and AVI formats, for example) and much longer compressed ones through the 10 Mb/s Ethernet packet service system. In the other words, a key feature of the proposed system lays in incorporating of the speech and video standard compression algorithms that enable a considerable reduction of the storage requirements of the LAN terminals and a saving of the required communication bandwidth. Also, the use of speech and video compression algorithms can improve the standardization characteristics of the entire system. The proposed system does not require special hardware modules for the audio and video compression algorithms because the compression/decompression process is based on off-line software implementations.