Evolution of temporal multimedia synchronization principles

Ever since the invention of the world's first telephone in the nineteenth century, the evolution of multimedia applications has drastically changed human life and behaviors, and has introduced new demands for multimedia synchronization. In this chapter, we present a historical view of temporal synchronization efforts with a focus on continuous multimedia (i.e., sequences of time-correlated multimedia data). We demonstrate how the development of multimedia systems has advanced the research on synchronization, and what additional challenges have been imposed by next-generation multimedia technologies. We conclude with a new applicationdependent multilocation multi-demand synchronization framework to address these new challenges.