A Programming Architecture For Multimedia Applications Based On RTOS

At the present time, there are a lot of embedded products which based on RTOSVxWorks. Some of these products need to process picture, image, audio and videosuch as STB(set top box), e-Book and DVR(digital video recorder). These hardwareand software therefore constitute a multimedia system. To simplify program for multimedia applications on real time operating system, aprogramming architecture for multimedia applications (NPMED) is provided in thisarticle based on the ideas that a process unit is thought as a component. The concepts and ideas of this architecture are emphasized here. Two levelsynchronization model is also described. These are the theory of this article. Then the steps to implement this architecture on VxWorks are presented byapplying COM technology. These are the practice of this article. In the end an example is offered to demonstrate how to use, test and estimate thisarchitecture. There are two kind of program language to use these COM objects:compiled language and XML-style language(MML). It has been found that the architecture is extendable and flexible. It can beimplemented and used easily. Therefore, it is an effective model for multimediaapplications that run on real time operating system.