One of the research projects underway at Panasonic Technologies, Inc. is an investigation into scalable video servers and their guaranteed real-time video delivery in a distributed multi-media environment. There are two main research aspects that are being considered: the file system, and the network.

The file system needs to be resilient to error conditions and fully recoverable while staying on-line. Because the server is scalable, the file system can also be distributed. A final aspect to the file system is transparent support for a tertiary archive.

The network studies concentrate on two aspects: within a distributed server and for media delivery to/from the client. The server has to optimize quality of service while maintaining both its IPC needs to the various server parts and the data needs of the client. There are also the requirements to support both intranet and internet service compatibilities.

Windows NT has been chosen as the test bed for our investigations, both for the server and the clients.

Stephen Johnson
Panasonic Technologies, Inc.
2 Research Way
Princeton, NJ 08540
609 734-7321
Fax: 609 987-8827
steve@Research.Panasonic.COM