nload large multimedia files quickly. Typical users of the streaming class are streaming real-time applications, for example audio/video retrieval: streaming audio (news, music etc.) streaming video (news, music, traffic information etc.) With streaming, the client browser or plug-in can start displaying the data before the entire file has been transmitted. For streaming to work, the client side receiving the data must be able to collect the data and send it as a steady stream to the application that is processing the data and converting it to sound or pictures. Streaming applications are very asymmetric and therefore they withstand more delay than the more symmetric conversational services. This also means that they tolerate more jitter in the transmission. Jitter can easily be smoothed out by buffering. Streaming and downloading are compared in Figure 5.8. Streaming offers obviously a shorter waiting time before viewing. Internet video products and the accompanying media industry are clearly divided into two different target areas: Web broadcast (for example on-demand lectures) Video streaming on demand 5.4.3 INTERACTIVE CLASS Interactive class and background class are mainly intended for traditional Internet applica- tions like WWW, e-mail, Telnet, FTP and News. In both classes the resources are reserved End-to-end scope, delivery of on-demand mobile media Scope of 3GPP specifications Download Content creation process - Content production, Streaming editing and coding Application and media - Capture live events servers in the network Content aggregation - Content storage Content management - Content delivery Media client in the terminal - Media reception - Media decoding - Presentation and layout - Playback - Local storage (optional) Figure 5.8 Distribution of mobile media content. The C alternative is much more demanding than the B alternative, which can use time to reduce the bandwidth Services dynamically. Responsiveness of the interactive applications is ensured by the separation of interactive and backgro