S. Casner Precept Software, Inc. R. Frederick Xerox Palo Alto Research Center V. Jacobson Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory January 1996 RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications Status of this Memo This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract This memorandum describes RTP, the real-time transport protocol. RTP provides end-to-end network transport functions suitable for applications transmitting real-time data, such as audio, video or simulation data, over multicast or unicast network services. RTP does not address resource reservation and does not guarantee quality-of- service for real-time services. The data transport is augmented by a control protocol (RTCP) to allow monitoring of the data delivery in a manner scalable to large multicast networks, and to provide minimal control and identification functionality. RTP and RTCP are designed to be independent of the underlying transport and network layers. The protocol supports the use of RTP-level translators and mixers. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................ 3 2. RTP Use Scenarios ................................... 5 2.1 Simple Multicast Audio Conference ................... 5 2.2 Audio and Video Conference .......................... 6 2.3 Mixers and Translators .............................. 6 3. Definitions ......................................... 7 4. Byte Order, Alignment, and Time Format .............. 9 5. RTP Data Transfer Proto...
