Subject: Protocol Action: Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) to Proposed Standard

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 12:38:30 -0500

The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft Real Time Streaming Protocol
(RTSP) <draft-ietf-mmusic-rtsp-09.txt> as a Proposed Standard.  This
document is the product of the Multiparty Multimedia Session Control
Working Group.  The IESG contact persons are Allyn Romanow and Scott
Bradner.

Technical Summary
 
The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is a client-server
application-level protocol for controlling the delivery of data with
real-time properties. It establishes and controls either a single or
several time-synchronized streams of continueous media, such as audio
and video. It uses transport protocols such as UDP, multicast UDP,
TCP, and RTP to deliver the continuous streams. In other words, RTSP
acts as a "network remote control" for multimedia servers.  Sources of
data can include both live data feeds and stored clips.

Working Group Summary

The history of the RTSP protocol within the MMUSIC WG is generally
considered to be an example the IETF process working well.

Netscape and Real Networks brought to the MMUSIC WG a protocol called RTSP.
Henning Schulzrinne proposed RTSP', which was more consistent with
ongoing IETF efforts, SIP and HTTP.  Both RTSP drafts were presented at the
San Jose IETF Jan 1996.  At this time the authors of the two drafts
agreed to work together to produce a merged RTSP spec.

The merged spec was discussed at the Memphis IETF where there were
significant open issues, and a revised spec produced.  The revised
spec was discussed at the Munich IETF where the open issues were much
fewer.  These remaining open issues were addressed in another spec.
This underwent an interoperability testing in the fall, and a further
revised spec underwent WG last call.  A few remaining minor issues
were found, and addressed in November 1997.

Protocol Quality

This protocol has been reviewed for the IETF by Allyn Romanow.

There has been a fair amount of implementation of RTSP. A reference
implementation exists. The following companies have implementations:
Netscape, IBM, Apple, Sun, Columbia, RealMedia. There have been
efforts to do interoperability testing.