Chapter 3.5 3.5 Unless firewalls force them to, streaming media sys- tems do not rely on TCP but implement their own, ap- plication-layer transport mechanisms. This allows for protocols that are both network adaptive and media aware. A transport protocol may determine, for example, Network adaptive media transport Mark Kalman and Bernd Girod 3.5.1 Introduction Internet packet delivery is characterized by variations in throughput, delay, and loss, which can severely affect the quality of real-time media. The challenge is to maxi-