RTP/RTCP: real-time transfer protocol and real-time control protocol support for embedded systems from Fusion RTP/RTCP by Unicoi Systems

The Fusion Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) was designed to enable the transport of real-time data over packet-oriented data networks such as the Internet. Fusion Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP) is a companion protocol that is used for gathering statistics on the performance of the connection. These statistics are used to dynamically adjust and optimize for current network conditions.

In the context of RTP, real-time data generally refers to audio and video data, but the RFC does not impose any restrictions on the nature of the RTP payload. RTP was developed primarily to suit the needs of multi-participant multimedia conferences, but its use is not limited to these kinds of applications and indeed it can be of value any time there is a need to transport real-time information over a packet network, and in particular over a network based on the Internet Protocol.

Because Fusion Embedded RTP takes care of many of the networking aspects of RTP, the developer of an RTP application is free to focus on the issues that are more important to the application – RTP payloads, encoding and decoding media streams, etc.

Fusion Embedded RTP takes advantage of Fusion 7's multi-point unicast UDP socket support to allow RTP packets to be sent to multiple unicast destinations with no additional copies of RTP payload data. It also integrates with Fusion Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) for network timestamps, and can be used with an RTOS or in polled-mode.