即時多媒體串流傳輸需要大量的頻寬，即使只有少量的串流接收端，也會使得多媒體串流來源端的頻寬趨於飽和。群播(IP Multicast)可以使得單一傳送端，很容易的傳送資訊給多個接收端，但是目前網路層的群播並不成熟。同儕串流傳輸(Peer-to-Peer streaming)，將使得大量的即時多媒體串流傳輸得以實現。但大多數的同儕串流傳輸架構會使得他們的樹狀傳輸架構之高度太高，因此接收到的多媒體串流將會不那麼即時，且某一個peer離開後的恢復時間將會變的很長。

　　本論文提出一個結合群播與同儕傳輸的傳送架構，來處理即時的多媒體串流傳輸，我們叫此架構為APM (An Architecture combining Peer-to-Peer with IP Multicast)。一方面，當有許多的peer位於同一個網域，APM可以利用群播的優點，另一方面，APM可以使用同儕傳輸的方法由某個peer傳送給在不同網域內的其他peer。

　　我們以APM架構建立一個一對多的語音/視訊會議系統。並建立一個多對多的語音/視訊會議系統。使用者可以看到及聽到同一討論群組裡所有人的影像及聲音。同時也設計一套線上多人白板溝通工具來處理手寫資訊，以及線上多人投影片溝通工具來處理投影片同步資訊。

　Since live multimedia streaming needs high bandwidth, even a small number of clients receiving the stream will saturate the bandwidth at the source. Using Group multicast protocol can easily transport information from one transmitter to many receivers. But, at present, Internet protocol multicast is not mature. Peer-to-Peer streaming will enable large-scale live media streaming. But most of peer-to-peer streaming architecture may make their delivery tree too high, the media received is not so live and the time to recover from a peer departure will be long.

　In this paper, we propose an architecture combining peer-to-peer with IP Multicast for live multimedia streaming, we call our architecture as APM (An Architecture combining Peer-to-Peer with IP Multicast). On one hand, when many peers are in the same sub-net, APM can take advantage of IP Multicast, and on the other hand, APM can use peer-to-peer approach to transport information from one peer to other peers in different sub-net.
　
　We construct a single-source audio/video conference system based on APM. We also construct a multi-source audio/video conference system. Users can see/hear other members’video/audio information in the same discussion group. We also design an online multi-user whiteboard communication for handwriting information. We also design an online multi-user PPT communication for PowerPoint synchronization.

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