Network Working Group M. Westerlund
Internet-Draft B. Burman
Intended status: Standards Track P. Sandgren
Expires: April 25, 2013 Ericsson
October 22, 2012
RTCP SDES Item SRCNAME to Label Individual Sources
draft-westerlund-avtext-rtcp-sdes-srcname-02
Abstract
This document defines a new SDES item called SRCNAME which uniquely
identifies a single media source, like a camera or a microphone.
That way anyone receiving the SDES information from a set of
interlinked RTP sessions can determine which SSRCs are logically
related to the same source. It can equally be used to label SSRC
multiplexed related streams, such as FEC or Retransmission streams
related to the original source stream in the same session. In
addition the new SDES item is also defined for usage with the SDP
source specific media attribute ("a=ssrc"), enabling an end-point to
declare and learn the source bindings through signalling ahead of
receiving RTP/RTCP packets.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on April 25, 2013.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Problem Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1. RTP SSRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2. RTCP SDES CNAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.3. SDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.4. Implicit Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Proposed Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1. SRCNAME Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2. SRCNAME in SDES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.3. SRCNAME in SDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.4. SRCNAME in RTP Header Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. SRCNAME Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. SDES Item SRCNAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8. SRCNAME in SDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
9. SRCNAME as RTP Header Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.1. Simulcast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10.2. SVC with multi-session transmission . . . . . . . . . . . 13
10.3. Retransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10.4. Forward Error Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
11. Usage with the Offer/Answer Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
12. Backward Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
13. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
14. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
15.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
15.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
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1. Introduction
RTP [RFC3550] has always been a protocol that supports multiple
participants, each sending their own media streams in RTP sessions.
Previously, many implementations have aimed only at point to point
voice over IP with a single source in each end-point. Even client
implementations aimed at video conferences have often been built with
the assumption around central mixers that only deliver a single media
stream per media type. However, more advanced client implementations
may transmit multiple streams in the same RTP session and there may
be tight relations between different streams and their SSRCs. For
example, a client with several cameras that uses simulcast to send
streams with different encodings of the video from each camera have
the need of conveying the relation of the streams to the receiver. A
similar example is a client with several cameras that uses SVC multi-
session transmission [RFC6190] and also here the receiver needs to
know which streams relate to which video source. Other examples of
tight RTP relations are a retransmission stream and its original
stream, and cases of forward error correction (FEC), where a client
needs to associate a number of source streams with, in general, a
different number of repair streams.
2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
3. Problem Description
In a scenario where an endpoint needs to send several RTP media
streams, in a single RTP session or spread across several RTP
sessions, and where two or more of those streams are somehow related,
that relation information is today not always possible to convey in a
timely manner to entities (endpoints and middle nodes) that need it.
An RTP Mixer [RFC5117], on the other hand, must have all the SDP
information available and can provide it to any number of
participants, since there must be a mapping from the original sources
to the Mixer's own streams, which are in turn distributed to all
other participants. That is also true for a source projecting mixer,
since there is a projection algorithm that must be made to work. It
is even likely that the Mixer is allowed to provide the stream
relation and impose that onto all of the clients, rather than trying
to map a wide variety of different relations onto what it provides.
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A single relation between two or more streams means that each stream
has a certain "role" in that specific relation. A "role" is related
to a specific reason to group a set of streams. The number of
different grouping tags defined in various RFC for use with the SDP
group attribute [RFC5888], as well as the media decoding dependency
attribute [RFC5583] can be used as an indication of the different
roles that may need to be described.
Those stream relational roles are typically application-specific, can
sometimes be complex, and a single stream can even take on several
roles. The major difference between roles is that they commonly do
not share the same hierarchy root node and sometimes also middle
nodes differ between roles. All roles however use the same hierarchy
leaves, being the RTP media streams, but different roles may want to
name leaves differently. It should be possible to express such
relation structure and allow a single stream to hold several roles.
It is believed to be sufficient if a single stream role can be
described as being part of a relation hierarchy.
4. Motivation
This section contains a brief description of existing techniques that
conceivably could be used to provide information on RTP stream
relations, and a motivation why those are not always sufficient. In
addition, there are defined milestones for RTP stream duplication
[I-D.ietf-avtext-rtp-duplication] in IETF AVTEXT and stream
duplication grouping [I-D.ietf-mmusic-duplication-grouping] in MMUSIC
WG that makes normative references to this document.
4.1. RTP SSRC
To rely on using the same RTP Synchronization SouRCe (SSRC) for all
streams related to a particular media source is many times not
possible when the related streams are part of the same RTP session,
since the SSRC itself is the identifier to tell the streams apart.
This method is not robust against SSRC collision and potentially
forces cascading SSRC changes between sessions. It does also not
provide any information in how the streams are related.
4.2. RTCP SDES CNAME
CNAME is not sufficient to express the necessary type of relation,
although that is commonly inferred from end-points that have only one
media stream per media type. The primary use of CNAME in multi-
source usages is instead to indicate which end-point and what
synchronization context a particular media stream relates to, and
that usually means that all streams sent from a client have the same
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CNAME.
4.3. SDP
A common solution is to use SDP [RFC4566] attributes to convey the
relation between streams. Session-multiplexed streams can be
associated with an attribute that groups different SDP m-lines
[RFC5888], and SSRC-multiplexed streams can be grouped at the media
level for each SDP m-line [RFC5576]. For example, Forward Error
Correction Grouping Semantics in the Session Description Protocol
[RFC5956] uses that media level grouping with the "FEC-FR" tag to
group FEC associations when the different streams from a source are
SSRC-multiplexed in the same RTP session.
Using SDP attributes may work fine in the case when the receivers of
the streams also get an SDP describing the bindings of all the
streams, but that is not always the case. One such example is a
highly dynamic conference session where a large amount of clients are
communicating with each other via an RTP Translator [RFC5117]. The
RTP Translator forwards all RTP and RTCP traffic from a client to all
other clients and the clients can be prepared to receive any number
of streams of certain specified media. When a new client joins the
session, the other clients may not be notified via explicit
signalling before starting to receive media streams from this new
client. Such notification could for example be made through a SIP
Update with a new SDP containing an explicit list of the new streams,
but there are also other possibilities. The clients will instead
detect the new client's streams directly via RTP and RTCP. Similar
situations typically arise in multicast scenarios. In those cases,
there is no way for a client or middle node to identify if and how
certain streams are related to each other, since that information was
only included in the SDP, if at all.
4.4. Implicit Methods
RTP Retransmission Payload Format [RFC4588] describes a solution for
finding the association between original streams and retransmission
streams when SSRC-multiplexing is used. The association can be
resolved when the receiver receives a retransmission packet matching
a retransmission request sent earlier. However, the RFC states that
this mechanism might fail if there are two outstanding requests for
the same packet sequence number in two different original streams of
a session. Therefore, to avoid ambiguity in unicast a receiver MUST
NOT have two outstanding requests for the same packet sequence number
in two different original streams before the association is resolved.
For multicast, however, this ambiguity cannot be avoided and SSRC-
multiplexing of original and retransmission streams is therefore
prohibited in multicast. By defining a solution for one to one
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mapping between an original stream and any supporting streams, this
issue can be avoided in the future.
Note: This document does not update RFC 4588 to use the proposed
solution, but it may be done in the future.
5. Proposed Solution
To enable an RTP session participant to determine the close relation
of different streams without the above mentioned problems, a new
method for identifying such sources is needed. This identification
is called Source Name, or SRCNAME and is a unique identifier
identifying a single media source, like a camera, a microphone, a
particular media mix, or conceptual stream.
5.1. SRCNAME Contents
The basic idea is that streams with matching SRCNAME are related,
similar to the idea with RTCP SDES CNAME.
It is assumed that related streams will share the same
synchronization context, meaning that the SRCNAME is scoped by CNAME
and need not duplicate any CNAME information.
The SRCNAME format includes "." (%x2E) as a hierarchy separator,
allowing a stream to relate to another stream at a certain hierarchy
level. Each hierarchy level is then a node in a hierarchy tree. For
example, assume a video stream being provided in two different
resolutions, named "lowres" and "hires", each being protected by a
Forward Error Correction stream, with another additive FEC stream
covering both resolutions. The low resolution video media stream
could have a SRCNAME being "program1.video.lowres.media", and its FEC
stream "program1.video.lowres.fec". By this, and although it is not
a stream in itself, it is possible to use "program1.video.lowres" to
refer to the set of related streams (in this case media and FEC)
belonging to "lowres". If needed, it is still possible to refer to
the individual, physical, streams by using one more level of the
hierarchy (".media" and ".fec"). The SRCNAME for the additive FEC
stream, covering both resolutions and their per-stream FEC, could be
"program1.video.fec". Building on the same example, an high fidelity
audio stream belonging to the above video could use an SRCNAME of
"program1.audio.hifi".
Note that the hierarchy structure can be chosen entirely by the media
sender, but it is anyway possible to decide stream relations, at what
level the streams relate, and which other streams that are included
in the relation at that level by matching SRCNAME hierarchically
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left-to-right between "." hierarchy separators. The specific type of
relation is not encoded into SRCNAME in any mandated way, but need to
be stringently described by other means, for example SDP, and is out
of scope for this specification. SRCNAME needs only express that
streams are related, not exactly how the related streams should be
processed together.
Note that SRCNAME need not be particularly human-readable as long as
each node in the hierarchy has a tag that is unique for that CNAME
context, which makes it possible to limit the SRCNAME size.
5.2. SRCNAME in SDES
RTP [RFC3550] defines the Source Description RTCP Packet (SDES),
which contains one or more chunks, each of which is composed of SDES
items describing the SSRC identified in that chunk. None of the
present SDES items is, however, suitable for uniquely identifying a
media source.
Therefore, we propose to define a new SDES item called the SRCNAME,
which uses a unique label to identify a single media source, like a
camera or a microphone. The source may also be a particular media
mix or conceptual stream, such as the "most active speaker" output by
a RTP mixer performing stream switching. That way, anyone receiving
the SDES information from a set of interlinked RTP sessions or
multiple SSRCs in the same session can determine which SSRCs are the
same source. Connecting streams with SRCNAME can be done
irrespective of which multiplexing type is used and it solves the
problems with the current solutions described above.
5.3. SRCNAME in SDP
It is, however, possible that a receiver will receive the RTP streams
before receiving SDES packets with all SRCNAME items and that would
mean that the receiver cannot make the connections between SSRCs and
SRCNAMEs when starting to receive the media. "Source-Specific Media
Attributes in the Session Description Protocol (SDP)" [RFC5576]
defines a way of declaring different attributes for SSRCs in each
session in SDP, and if a new source attribute is added to this
framework, it would be suitable for conveying the connections between
SSRCs and SRCNAMEs before the media communication starts. Thus, in
addition to the new SDES item we also define a new SDP source-
specific media attribute called "srcname", which enables an end-point
to declare and learn the source bindings ahead of receiving RTP/RTCP
packets. Of course, this new SDP source attribute will not be useful
for the case described above when clients did not get updates with
new client's stream bindings, but it will be useful in most other
cases.
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5.4. SRCNAME in RTP Header Extension
There is a risk that neither RTCP SDES nor SDP attributes are timely
enough in cases where RTP streams are received before the SDES has
arrived, in which case an RTP header extension [RFC5285] could be
negotiated for use, containing a combination of CNAME and SRCNAME
information. This type of rapid information synchronization through
RTP header extension is similar to what is described in [RFC6051].
The RTP header extension need not be present in every RTP packet, for
example only in the beginning of the stream, at key points, or
periodically, according to the application's needs and as chosen by
the media sender.
6. SRCNAME Format
The SRCNAME MUST fulfill the requirements Section 6.5 in RTP
[RFC3550] puts on SDES item values in general. These requirements is
that it is a UTF-8 [RFC3629] string that have a maximum length of 255
bytes.
In addition, there are format restrictions to accommodate the
relation hierarchy and multiple roles, as described by the following
ABNF [RFC5234]:
srcname-node = 1*(%x01-09 / %x0B-0C / %x0E-2D / %x2F-FF)
; Same as RFC 4566 "byte-string"
; except for the hierarchy separator
srcname-content = srcname-node *(%x2E srcname-node)
Figure 1: SRCNAME Format ABNF
It is RECOMMENDED to use per communication session unique random
identifiers, applying srcname-node restrictions, as srcname-node.
The length of such srcname-node identifiers MAY be limited down to a
single character, especially when the resulting SRCNAME has several
nodes.
7. SDES Item SRCNAME
Source Descriptions are a method that should work with all RTP
topologies (assuming that any intermediary node is supporting this
item) and existing RTP extensions. We propose to define a new SDES
item called SRCNAME. That way, anyone receiving the SDES information
from a set of interlinked RTP sessions or SSRCs in a single session
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can determine which SSRCs are related to the same source, and at what
hierarchy level.
This SRCNAME's relation to CNAME is the following. CNAME represents
an end-point and a synchronization context. If the different sources
identified by SRCNAMEs should be played out synchronized when
receiving them in a multi-stream context, then the sources need to be
in the same synchronization context. Thus in all cases, all SSRCs
with the same SRCNAME will have the same CNAME. A given CNAME may
contain multiple sets of sources using different SRCNAMEs.
The SDES SRCNAME item follows the same format as the other SDES items
defined in RTP [RFC3550]:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| SRCNAME=TBA1 | length | source name ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 2: SDES SRCNAME Format
The source name field MUST follow the above srcname-content
definition. Multiple SDES SRCNAME describing different relation
roles MAY be included.
When using the SRCNAME SDES item, it is equally important as CNAME.
Thus SRCNAME is RECOMMENDED to be included in all full compound RTCP
packets being sent. It MAY also be included in non-compound packets
in cases where the implementation believes that there might be new
receivers needing the information.
8. SRCNAME in SDP
"Source-Specific Media Attributes in the Session Description Protocol
(SDP)" [RFC5576] defines a way of declaring attributes for SSRC in
each session in SDP. With a new SDES item, it is possible to use
this framework to define how SRCNAME can also be provided in the SDP
for each SSRC in each RTP session, thus enabling an end-point to
declare and learn the source bindings ahead of receiving RTP/RTCP
packets.
Hence, we propose a new SDP source attribute called srcname with the
following structure:
a=ssrc:<ssrc-id> srcname:<srcname>
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The srcname value MUST be identical to the SRCNAME value the media
sender will send in the SDES SRCNAME item in the SDES RTCP packets.
Multiple srcname attributes MAY be used to describe multiple relation
roles.
FormalABNF syntax [RFC5234] for the "srcname" attribute:
srcname-attr = "srcname:" srcname
srcname = srcname-content
attribute =/ srcname-attr
; The definition of "attribute" is in RFC 4566.
Figure 3: SRCNAME Attribute ABNF
When used in SDP, srcname-content MUST use ISO 10646 in UTF-8
encoding, and MUST be independent of any "a=charset".
9. SRCNAME as RTP Header Extension
When SRCNAME information is carried as RTP header extension
[RFC5285], the header extension MUST contain both CNAME and SRCNAME
information, since SRCNAME is scoped by CNAME. Separate header
extension identities are defined for SRCNAME and CNAME. This is
motivated by the fact that a single RTP stream can have several
SRCNAME, but only a single CNAME.
The RTP header extensions for CNAME and SRCNAME MAY use either one of
the one-byte or two-byte header formats, depending on the CNAME and
SRCNAME value size. The one-byte header SHOULD be used when the
value contains at most 16 bytes. Note that the RTP header extension
specification does not allow to mix one-byte and two-byte headers for
the same stream, so if the value size of either SRCNAME or CNAME
requires the two-byte header, the other MUST also use that header
format.
The header extension payload for SRCNAME contains the srcname-
content, as defined in Section 6. The header extension payload for
CNAME contains the CNAME value as defined in [RFC3550]. Figures
Figure 4 and Figure 5 show samples of the structure of the header
extension payload for the two header formats.
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0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID | len | CNAME or SRCNAME value ... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 4
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID | len | CNAME or SRCNAME value ... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 5
The URN identifiers to use with "a=extmap" SDP signaling for SRCNAME
and CNAME, respectively, MUST be
urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:srcname
urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:cname
10. Examples
This section shows SDP examples of declaring the SRCNAME in SDP.
10.1. Simulcast
In this use case the end-point is a client with a single audio source
and two video sources, and it uses simulcast for sending different
encodings of the same video source. This example is based on Using
Simulcast in RTP sessions [I-D.westerlund-avtcore-rtp-simulcast].
The following SDP describes this.
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v=0
o=alice 3203093520 3203093520 IN IP4 foo.example.com
s=Simulcast enabled client
t=0 0
c=IN IP4 foo.example.com
m=audio 49200 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 G719/48000/2
a=ssrc:521923924 cname:alice@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:521923924 srcname:a1
a=mid:1
m=video 49300 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 H264/90000
a=fmtp:96 profile-level-id=42c01e
a=imageattr:96 send [x=640,y=360] recv [x=640,y=360] [x=320,y=180]
a=ssrc:192392452 cname:alice@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:192392452 srcname:v1
a=ssrc:834753488 cname:alice@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:834753488 srcname:v2
a=mid:2
a=content:main
m=video 49400 RTP/AVP 97
a=rtpmap:97 H264/90000
a=fmtp:97 profile-level-id=42c00d
a=imageattr:97 send [x=320,y=180]
a=ssrc:239245219 cname:alice@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:239245219 srcname:v1
a=ssrc:734623563 cname:alice@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:734623563 srcname:v2
a=mid:3
a=sendonly
The audio session is proposing to use one stereo stream of G.719 and
the video sessions are proposing to send two different encodings of
each video source, one with the resolution 640x360 and one with
320x180. The end-point also declares the SSRCs it intends to use
with bindings to CNAME and SRCNAME, enabling the receiver of the SDP
to bind together the video streams that originate from the same video
camera. For example, the two streams having an SRCNAME of "v1"
originate from the same video camera and belong together.
The use of the srcname attribute in the SDP is optional and the
information can be retrieved from RTCP reporting, but it will then
not be possible to correctly relate the video sources until the first
RTCP report is received.
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10.2. SVC with multi-session transmission
Here an example is shown of a client that uses SVC with multi-session
transmission as described in RTP Payload Format for Scalable Video
Coding [RFC6190]. RTP Payload Format for Scalable Video Coding
[RFC6190] only describes examples for a client with one video source
and the decoder dependencies of the different sessions are grouped
using the Session grouping DDP attribute as defined in Signaling
Media Decoding Dependency in the Session Description Protocol (SDP)
[RFC5583] and implicitly CNAME.
However, if a client has two video sources and wishes to use multi-
session transmission and send streams from both sources in each
session, an additional grouping mechanism is needed to group the
different streams in the different sessions. SRCNAME is suitable for
this and here we show an example where the DDP attribute groups the
different sessions and the SRCNAME is used to relate the different
SSRCs in each RTP session to one of the two video sources.
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v=0
o=bob 8473948250 8473948250 IN IP4 foo.example.com
s=SVC MST client
t=0 0
c=IN IP4 foo.example.com
a=group:DDP L1 L2 L3
m=audio 49500 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 G719/48000/2
a=ssrc:293848928 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=mid:A1
m=video 20000 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 H264/90000
a=fmtp:96 profile-level-id=4de00a; packetization-mode=1;
mst-mode=NI-TC; sprop-parameter-sets={sps0},{pps0};
a=ssrc:743947584 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:743947584 srcname:V1.L1
a=ssrc:283894947 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:283894947 srcname:V2.L1
a=mid:L1
m=video 20002 RTP/AVP 97
a=rtpmap:97 H264-SVC/90000
a=fmtp:97 profile-level-id=53000c; packetization-mode=1;
mst-mode=NI-T; sprop-parameter-sets={sps1},{pps1};
a=ssrc:492784823 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:492784823 srcname:V1.L2
a=ssrc:892362397 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:892362397 srcname:V2.L2
a=mid:L2
a=depend:97 lay L1:96
m=video 20004 RTP/AVP 98
a=rtpmap:98 H264-SVC/90000
a=fmtp:98 profile-level-id=53001F; packetization-mode=1;
mst-mode=NI-T; sprop-parameter-sets={sps2},{pps2};
a=ssrc:184562894 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:184562894 srcname:V1.L3
a=ssrc:305605682 cname:bob@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:305605682 srcname:V2.L3
a=mid:L3
a=depend:98 lay L1:96 L2:97
Thus, the client declares that it will send two video streams in each
RTP session and the receiver is then able to relate the streams in
the different sessions by using the SRCNAME binding, with matching
(first parts of the) SRCNAME value. Without the SRCNAME binding it
would not be possible for the receiver to know which streams belong
to the same source. Note that the audio stream does not have an
explicit srcname attribute in this example, but only relate to the
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video streams through the same CNAME. Note that the last part of the
SRCNAMEs in the example, ".L1", ".L2" and ".L3" are not necessary but
allowed and will not impact the ability to tell that the streams
belong together, since related streams have the first part in common.
10.3. Retransmission
This use case shows how SRCNAME can be used to connect retransmission
streams to the original streams in the case of SSRC multiplexed RTP
retransmission [RFC4588]. This is included to exemplify how RTP
retransmission could be updated to provide explicit bindings between
the source and the repair stream, but just an example and not a
specification.
v=0
o=carol 3462534872 3462534872 IN IP4 foo.example.com
s=SSRC-multiplexed retransmission client
t=0 0
c=IN IP4 foo.example.com
m=audio 49800 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 G719/48000/2
a=ssrc:8372496978 cname:carol@foo.example.com
a=mid:1
m=video 49300 RTP/AVP 96 97
a=rtpmap:96 H264/90000
a=rtcp-fb:96 nack
a=fmtp:96 profile-level-id=42c01e
a=rtpmap:97 rtx/90000
a=fmtp:97 apt=96;rtx-time=200
a=ssrc:192392452 cname:carol@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:192392452 srcname:v1.o
a=ssrc:834753488 cname:carol@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:834753488 srcname:v1.r
a=ssrc:682394013 cname:carol@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:682394013 srcname:v2.o
a=ssrc:284576129 cname:carol@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:284576129 srcname:v2.r
a=mid:2
The client proposes to send two original video streams in the video
session and a retransmission stream for each one of them. The
retransmission streams are associated with the respective original
stream by using matching SRCNAME and a receiver would then know which
original stream a certain retransmission stream is associated with.
This solves the ambiguity problem when SSRC-multiplexing is used for
retransmission and it enables SSRC-multiplexing of original and
retransmission streams to be used also in multicast sessions. Note
that ".o" and ".r" parts of SRCNAME are not needed, but may improve
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understanding of the example and will not affect the ability to match
related streams.
10.4. Forward Error Correction
Forward Error Correction Grouping Semantics in the Session
Description Protocol [RFC5956] defines two SDP attributes for
grouping the associated source and FEC-based repair streams. One can
be used for grouping different RTP sessions and the other can be used
for grouping SSRCs in the same RTP session, i.e. when session-
respective SSRC-multiplexing is used. However, it may be
advantageous to SSRC-multiplex the source streams in one RTP session
and the repair streams in another since that gives a receiver the
possibility to reject the repair session in case it does not support
the proposed FEC. In this case, the above mentioned grouping
attributes cannot be used to associate the repair streams with the
respective source stream since grouping of SSRCs cannot be made
across RTP sessions. The following example shows how SRCNAME can be
used for that.
v=0
o=dave 7352395826 7352395826 IN IP4 foo.example.com
s=FEC client
t=0 0
c=IN IP4 foo.example.com
a=group:FEC-FR 2 3
m=audio 49300 RTP/AVP 96
a=rtpmap:96 G719/48000/2
a=ssrc:237847298 cname:dave@foo.example.com
a=mid:1
m=video 49200 RTP/AVP 100
a=rtpmap:100 MP2T/90000
a=ssrc:847612849 cname:dave@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:847612849 srcname:v1.o
a=ssrc:558237845 cname:dave@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:558237845 srcname:v2.o
a=exthdr:1 urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:cname
a=exthdr:4 urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:srcname
a=mid:2
m=application 49300 RTP/AVP 101
a=rtpmap:101 1d-interleaved-parityfec/90000
a=fmtp:101 L=5; D=10; repair-window=200000
a=ssrc:389572053 cname:dave@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:389572053 srcname:v1.r
a=ssrc:185729479 cname:dave@foo.example.com
a=ssrc:185729479 srcname:v2.r
a=exthdr:2 urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:cname
a=exthdr:5 urn:ietf:params:rtp-hdrext:srcname
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a=mid:3
In this example the client proposes to send two video streams in one
session and two repair streams in the other session. The repair
streams are associated with the respective video stream by using a
matching SRCNAME. When receiving either this SDP, the SDES SRCNAME
packets, or the SRCNAME/CNAME RTP header extensions (which are also
offered), a receiver can make the connection between the source
streams and the repair streams. Even a client not receiving the SDP
will be able to do the association, by SRCNAME in either SDES or RTP
header extension, if it has established one RTP session for receiving
source streams and another for receiving repair streams. Note that
".o" and ".r" parts of SRCNAME are not needed, but may improve
understanding of the example and will not affect the ability to match
related streams (since they match on the highest hierarchical level).
11. Usage with the Offer/Answer Model
The SDP offer/answer procedures for a=ssrc are specified in Source-
Specific Media Attributes in the Session Description Protocol (SDP)
[RFC5576]. The SDP offer/answer procedures for a=exthdr are
specified in A General Mechanism for RTP Header Extensions [RFC5285].
12. Backward Compatibility
Clients not supporting SRCNAME will not have the possibility to bind
different streams to a specific media source, since they will not
understand the SRCNAME SDES item or the RTP header extension.
However, sending SRCNAME SDES items to a client not supporting it
should not impose any problems since all clients should be prepared
that new SDES items may be specified according to RTP [RFC3550].
According to the definition of SDP attributes in SDP: Session
Description Protocol [RFC4566], if an attribute is received that is
not understood, it MUST be ignored by the receiver. So a receiver
not supporting the ssrc attribute will simply ignore it.
Source-Specific Media Attributes in the Session Description Protocol
(SDP) [RFC5576] defines rules of how new source attributes should be
registered, which means that a receiver supporting RFC 5576 should be
prepared that new source attributes may be defined. This means that
a user supporting some of the source attributes should not have any
problems when the user receives an SDP with unknown source
attributes.
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RTP header extension will only be used when successfully negotiated
in SDP, which requires support in both sender and receiver.
13. IANA Considerations
Following the guidelines in SDP [RFC4566], in The Session Description
Protocol (SDP) Grouping Framework [RFC5888], and in RTP [RFC3550],
the IANA is requested to register:
1. A new SDES item named SRCNAME, as defined in Section 7. This
item needs to be assigned an identifier TBA1.
2. A new SDP source attribute named srcname, as defined in
Section 8.
3. New RTP header extension URN identifiers for SRCNAME and CNAME,
as defined in Section 9.
14. Security Considerations
The SDES or header extension SRCNAMEs being close to opaque
identifiers could potentially carry additional meanings or function
as overt channel. If the SRCNAME would be permanent between
sessions, they have the potential for compromising the users' privacy
as they can be tracked between sessions. See Guidelines for Choosing
RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Canonical Names (CNAMEs) [RFC6222] for
more discussion.
A third party modification of the srcname labels either in the RTCP
SDES items, in the SDP a=ssrc attribute, or in the RTP header
extension can cause service disruption. By modifying labels the
wrong streams could be associated, with potentially serious effects
including media disruptions. If streams that are to be associated
aren't associated, then another type of failures occur. To prevent
modification, insertion or deletion of the srcname labels, the
carrying channel needs to be protected by integrity protection and
source authentication. For RTCP and RTP header extension, various
solutions exist, such as SRTP [RFC3711], DTLS [RFC6347], or IPsec
[RFC4301]. For protecting the SDP, the signalling channel needs to
provide protection. For SIP S/MIME [RFC3261] are the ideal, and hop
by hopTLS [RFC5246] provides at least some protection, although not
perfect. For SDPs retrieved using RTSP DESCRIBE [RFC2326], TLS would
be the RECOMMENDED solution.
15. References
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15.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3550] Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, July 2003.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
[RFC5576] Lennox, J., Ott, J., and T. Schierl, "Source-Specific
Media Attributes in the Session Description Protocol
(SDP)", RFC 5576, June 2009.
[RFC6222] Begen, A., Perkins, C., and D. Wing, "Guidelines for
Choosing RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Canonical Names
(CNAMEs)", RFC 6222, April 2011.
15.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-avtext-rtp-duplication]
Begen, A. and C. Perkins, "Duplicating RTP Streams",
draft-ietf-avtext-rtp-duplication-00 (work in progress),
July 2012.
[I-D.ietf-mmusic-duplication-grouping]
Begen, A., Cai, Y., and H. Ou, "Duplication Grouping
Semantics in the Session Description Protocol",
draft-ietf-mmusic-duplication-grouping-00 (work in
progress), October 2012.
[I-D.westerlund-avtcore-rtp-simulcast]
Westerlund, M., Burman, B., Lindqvist, M., and F. Jansson,
"Using Simulcast in RTP sessions",
draft-westerlund-avtcore-rtp-simulcast (work in progress),
October 2011.
[RFC2326] Schulzrinne, H., Rao, A., and R. Lanphier, "Real Time
Streaming Protocol (RTSP)", RFC 2326, April 1998.
[RFC3261] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
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Internet-Draft RTCP SDES SRCNAME October 2012
June 2002.
[RFC3711] Baugher, M., McGrew, D., Naslund, M., Carrara, E., and K.
Norrman, "The Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP)",
RFC 3711, March 2004.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
[RFC4566] Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session
Description Protocol", RFC 4566, July 2006.
[RFC4588] Rey, J., Leon, D., Miyazaki, A., Varsa, V., and R.
Hakenberg, "RTP Retransmission Payload Format", RFC 4588,
July 2006.
[RFC5117] Westerlund, M. and S. Wenger, "RTP Topologies", RFC 5117,
January 2008.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC5285] Singer, D. and H. Desineni, "A General Mechanism for RTP
Header Extensions", RFC 5285, July 2008.
[RFC5583] Schierl, T. and S. Wenger, "Signaling Media Decoding
Dependency in the Session Description Protocol (SDP)",
RFC 5583, July 2009.
[RFC5888] Camarillo, G. and H. Schulzrinne, "The Session Description
Protocol (SDP) Grouping Framework", RFC 5888, June 2010.
[RFC5956] Begen, A., "Forward Error Correction Grouping Semantics in
the Session Description Protocol", RFC 5956,
September 2010.
[RFC6051] Perkins, C. and T. Schierl, "Rapid Synchronisation of RTP
Flows", RFC 6051, November 2010.
[RFC6190] Wenger, S., Wang, Y., Schierl, T., and A. Eleftheriadis,
"RTP Payload Format for Scalable Video Coding", RFC 6190,
May 2011.
[RFC6347] Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, January 2012.
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Authors' Addresses
Magnus Westerlund
Ericsson
Farogatan 6
SE-164 80 Kista
Sweden
Phone: +46 10 714 82 87
Email: magnus.westerlund@ericsson.com
Bo Burman
Ericsson
Farogatan 6
SE-164 80 Kista
Sweden
Phone: +46 10 714 13 11
Email: bo.burman@ericsson.com
Patrik Sandgren
Ericsson
Farogatan 6
SE-164 80 Kista
Sweden
Phone: +46 10 717 97 41
Email: patrik.sandgren@ericsson.com
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