Multimedia Operating Systems - Assignment Example

of the of the of the Multimedia Operating System CHARACTERISTICS OF ‘MULTIMEDIA OPERATING SYSTEMS’. “Multimedia support in operating systems is one of the crucial prerequisites for a successful multimedia system”, quotes Steinmetz and Nahrstedt (2004) in their well-researched book Multimedia Systems. Multimedia Operating Systems are characteristically different from the traditional systems that work behind traditional applications. Some noticeable characteristics of multimedia operating systems may be narrated as follows: Increased File Sizes, thus Storage Spaces The file sizes of Multimedia systems may be quite large in size. For example a MPEG file of about a hundred minutes may need approximately a storage space of 1.125GB. Similarly, a High Definition Television or HDTV file may need up to about fifteen GB of storage space. With the said file size proportions imagine a server that has to store several media files of similar and more sizes. Such a server would definitely need terabytes of storage space. Faster Data Transfer Rate Required. The media that are continuous in nature such as audio and video files need to execute at a relatively faster data rate than that for normal non- media file types. For example, considering digital video, it is observed that a digital frame of the video is displayed at a conventional resolution of 800x600. If the resolution of 24 bits is used for the representation of each pixel (which permits the formation of roughly 16 million different colors) the amount of data that needs to be stored for a single frame of the video is about 800x600x24 = 11,520,000 bits. Similarly, if the rate at which the frames are displayed is around 30 frames per second, then an around 345 Mbps of bandwidth is needed to run the file. Playback Timing Delays Timing delays during playback are a critical factor when it comes to multimedia applications. Even after a media file has been sent to the client the process of that file’s playback requires continued delivery of the file. If this continuity of interaction is disrupted during playback then the viewer will have to face disruption in the running of the media. (Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne, 2011) COMPARING the above CHARACTERISTIC OF MULTIMEDIA OPERATING SYSTEMS to that of normal Operating systems it is observed that normal non-media file types are not associated with such limitations as have been stated above. Data files other than media file types are rarely as large in file sizes as are media file types. Similarly they do not require massive storage spaces for storage and execution. Thus, the non- multimedia Operating Systems are much simpler as compared to the multimedia operating systems. MULTIMEDIA FILES AND FILES SYSTEMS Introduction The File Systems in Multimedia Operating Systems are said to have extended the File System Structure of the Unix Operating System. As characteristically notified above, the file types that are relative to the multimedia operating system require quite a number of adjustments. This basically is because of the massiveness of the files, their need for runtime instructiveness with the server, the continuity of retrieval of data and synchronization. Figure 1: A movie file consisting of several files in a multimedia system. The handling and organization of these specific file types was a cumbersome task when the original and conventional file systems was arranged to accommodate them. With the increasing trends of graphical and media files embedded e-mail windows the handling of multimedia files has become inevitable. Their performance often comes at stake if their implementation is done using the conventional file system. Overview MMFS is a Multimedia File System. It extends the UNIX File System (UFS). Specifically designed for multimedia applications that may be interactive in nature, MMFS is characteristically supportive of the real-time and faster environments of the Multimedia file types. It supports single-medium editing and multiple-media playback environments. It does so by getting implemented in a file structure which is two dimensional in nature. The optimization of performance of the multimedia files types is achieved by improved communication among the file type and the file system. The improved API does the task for the MMFS. The interactive playback performance of the multimedia files is considerably improved as compared to those in the conventional file system. This is done by the support extended to prefetching that is logically supervised, disk scheduling which is real time in nature and retrieval of multi stream which is synchronized etcetera. The synchronization glitches are minimized in multi-stream retrievals due to the optimization implemented by the MMFS. The reduction in response time of multimedia file editing is also one of the major edges gained by the MMFS. Methodology The implementation of Multimedia File System comes in handy specifically when a conventional file system is adapted for use for Multimedia files. This implies to the everyday use desktop systems that need to incorporate multimedia files as their inevitable part. The way multimedia file systems adapt the conventional file systems is exquisite as this way the file system can efficiently handle both the multimedia and non-multimedia files. Thus a proficient single working environment is created. The Unix File System (UFS) is adapted into the Multimedia File System (MMFS) by retaining the semantics of the Unix File Access. The basis of the MMFS file system is the VFS or the Virtual File System model which had earlier been implemented on the FreeBSD which was a UNIX-Similar Operating System. MMFS Functionalities: Mentioning an excerpt from the Implementation and Evaluation of a Multimedia File System (Niranjan, Chiueh,Schloss, 1997 ) Sharon Shen (n.d.) quotes in her presentation that Multimedia File System (MMFS) functionalities for multimedia support are “Synchronized multi-stream retrieval Editing support Caching and prefetching optimizations Real-time disk scheduling” (Shen, n.d.) Design The Multimedia File System supports two dimensional file systems. Logically linking together all the components of a single file (for example, the media streams of a single media file) the MMFS makes use of the units ‘inode’ that is used by the UFS to store the file metadata. MMFS extends the concept of ‘inode’ by overall associating the Multimedia file with a ‘mnode’ instead. Each strand of the Multimedia file is associated with a unique ‘inode’. The multimedia specific data for each strand and the metadata of the entire Multimedia file are saved in the mnode file. The basic UFS is enhanced by the introduction of system calls. One of the introduced system calls is the mminfo which provides hints specific to the application. Thus it facilitates communication between the file system and the multimedia application, reducing overheads and synchronization flaws. PREFETCHING is an impressive means by which the file system reads the requirement of the application ahead of the actual call for it. This prefetching reduces the actual running time of the application specially the I/O time that might be involved in gathering together the different streams of a multimedia system. CONCLUSION Conclusively it may well be said that the Multimedia Operating systems are designed well to tackle the ever-growing multiethnic file type needs of the computing environments nowadays. They are just the very ideal kind of operating systems that suit the current scale of needs of the computing environment. The file system storage of a multimedia Operating system referred to as the MMFS, is the integral backend that supports the actual execution of multimedia file types and hence the multimedia operating system itself. WORKS CITED: "Multimedia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Mar. 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2012. . Tanenbaum, Andrew S., Jean-Alain Hernandez, René Joly, and Michel Dupuy. Systèmes Dexploitation: Corrigés Des Exercices. Paris: Pearson Education France, 2008. Print. Multimedia-Systems: Operating Systems. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Steinmetz, Prof. Dr. Max Mühlhäuser Silberschatz, Abraham, Peter B. Galvin, and Greg Gagne.Operating System Concepts Essentials. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2011. Print Steinmetz, Ralf, and Klara Nahrstedt. Multimedia Systems. Berlin: Springer, 2004. Print. Shen, Sharon. “Implementation and Evaluation of a Multimedia File System.” N.d. Power Point Presentation. Read More