Jean-Marc Valin
2004-Aug-06 15:01 UTC
[speex-dev] First draft for Speex RTP profile - Please send your comments
Hi, We'd like to announce the first draft for the Speex RTP profile. It was written essentially by Greg Herlein, with some help from Simon Morlat and I. We'd like to get some feedback on it before it is sent to the IETF. Basically this will allow all SIP based VoIP applications using Speex to inter-operate. For those interested, there's already Simon's LinPhone (www.linphone.org) VoIP phone that supports Speex (not yet compliant with the current draft though). Anyway, please read the draft in attachment and send you comments so we can improve it. Jean-Marc -- Jean-Marc Valin, M.Sc.A. LABORIUS (http://www.gel.usherb.ca/laborius) Universit de Sherbrooke, Qubec, Canada Network Working Group Audio-Video Transport Working Group Internet Draft Herlein/Valin draft-herlein-speex-rtp-profile-03 October 22, 2002 Expires: April 22. 2003 <p> RTP Payload Format for the Speex Codec Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress". The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt To view the list Internet-Draft Shadow Directories, see http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved. Abstract Speex is an open-source, patent-free voice codec suitable for use in Voice over IP (VoIP) type applications. The Speex codec supports two modes of operation: narrowband at a nominal 8kHz sample rate and wideband at a nominal 16kHz sample rate. Speex supports Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and Variable Bit Rate (VBR). This document describes the payload format for Speex generated bit streams within an RTP packet. Also included here are the necessary details for the use of Speex with MIME and SDP. <p>1. Conventions used in this document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [6]. 2. Overview of the Speex Codec Speex is based on the CELP encoding technique with support for either wideband (nominal 16kHz) or narrowband (nominal 8kHz) sampling. The main characteristics can be summerized as follows: o Free software/open-source, royalty-free o Integration of wideband and narrowband in the same bit-stream o Wide range of bit-rates available o Dynamic bit-rate switching and variable bit-rate (VBR) o Voice Activity Detection (VAD, integrated with VBR) o Variable complexity <p>3. RTP payload format for Speex Speex uses 20 ms frames and a variable sampling rate clock. The RTP timestamp MUST be in units of 1/X of a second where X is the sample rate used. Speex uses a nominal 8kHz sampling rate for narrowband use and a nominal 16kHz sampling rate for wideband use. The RTP payload for Speex has the format shown in Figure 1. No additional header specific to this payload format is required. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | RTP Header [3] | +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ | | + one or more frames of Speex | | .... |p| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Figure 1: RTP payload for Speex The encoding and decoding algorithm can change the bit rate at any 20ms frame boundary but the bit rate change notification is provided in-band with the bit stream. Each frame contains both "mode" (narrowband or wideband) and "sub-mode" (bit-rate) information in the bit stream. No out-of-band notification is required for the decoder to process changes in the bit rate sent by the encoder. For the purposes of packetizing the bit stream in RTP, it is only necessary to consider the sequence of bits as output by the Speex encoder, and present the same sequence to the decoder. The payload format described here maintains this sequence. An RTP packet MAY contain Speex frames of the same bit rate or of varying bit rates, since the bit-rate for a frame is conveyed in band with the signal. It is RECOMMENDED that values of 8000 or 16000 be used for normal internet telephony applications, though the sample rate is supported at rates as low as 6000 Hz and as high as 22.05 kHz. The RTP payload MUST be padded to provide an integer number of octets as the payload length. These padding bits MUST be all zero. This padding is only required for the last frame in the packet, and only to ensure the packet contents ends on an octet boundary. <p>3.1 Multiple Speex frames in a RTP packet By default only one Speex frame is permitted in a single RTP packet. When operating with multiple frames per packet then the end points MUST use out-of-band negotiation to determine the number of frames per packet. See section 5 below for an example of how to do this with SDP [5]. 3.2 Computing the number of Speex frames If using SDP [5] (see section 5 below for an example) this can be done using the "ptime" variable to denote the packetization interval (ie, how many milliseconds of audio is encoded in a single RTP packet). Since Speex uses 20ms frames, ptime values of multiples of 20 denote multiple Speex frames per packet. Values of ptime in other than multiples of 20 SHOULD be ignored and SHOULD use the default value of one instead. <p>4. MIME registration of Speex MIME media type name: audio MIME subtype: SPX Required parameters: <p> Optional parameters: ptime: RECOMMENDED duration of each packet in milliseconds. mode: RECOMMENDED speex encoding mode. Can be {1,2,3,4,5,any} penh: RECOMMENDED use of perceptual enhancement. 1 indicates to the decoder that perceptual enhancement is recommended, 0 indicates that it is not. Encoding considerations: This type is only defined for transfer via RTP as specified in a Work in Progress. Security Considerations: See Section 6 of RFC 3047. Interoperability considerations: none Published specification: Applications which use this media type: Audio and video streaming and conferencing tools Additional information: none Person & email address to contact for further information: Intended usage: COMMON Author/Change controller: Author: Change controller: <p>5. SDP usage of Speex When conveying information by SDP [5], the encoding name SHALL be "SPX" (the same as the MIME subtype). An example of the media representation in SDP for offering a single channel of Speex at 8000 samples per second might be: m=audio 8088 RTP/AVP 97 a=rtpmap:97 SPX/8000 Note that the sampling frequency is given on the a=rtpmap line. Its value is typically 8000 for narrow band operation and 16000 for wide band operation. If for some reason the offerer has bandwith limitations, he may use the "b=" header, as explained in SDP [5]. The following example illustrates the case where the offerer cannot receive more than 10 kbit/s. m=audio 8088 RTP/AVP 97 b=AS:10 a=rtmap:97 SPX/8000 In this case, if the remote part agrees, it should configure its speex encoder so that it does not use modes that produce more than 10 kbit/s. Note that the "b=" constraint also applies on all payload types that may be proposed in the media line ("m="). An other way to make recommendations to the remote speex encoder is to use its specific parameters: m=audio 8008 RTP/AVP 97 a=rtpmap:97 SPX/8000 a=fmtp:97 mode=3 This examples illustrate an offerer that wishes to receive a speex stream at 8000Hz, but only using speex mode 3. The offerer may suggest to the remote decoder to activate its perceptual enhancement filter like this: m=audio 8088 RTP/AVP 97 a=rtmap:97 SPX/8000 a=fmtp:97 penh=1 Several speex specific parameters can be given in a single a=fmtp line provided that they are separated by a semi-colon: a=fmtp:97 mode=any;penh=1 Finally the use of a particular packetization interval may be suggested to the remote encoder using the ptime parameter: m=audio 8008 RTP/AVP 97 a=rtpmap:97 SPX/8000 a=ptime:40 Note that the ptime parameter applies to all payloads listed in the media line. Speex can encode frames of 20 ms. Values of ptime not multiple of 20 ms are meaningless, so the receiver of such ptime values SHOULD ignore them. <p>6. Security Considerations RTP packets using the payload format defined in this specification are subject to the security considerations discussed in the RTP specification [3], and any appropriate RTP profile. This implies that confidentiality of the media streams is achieved by encryption. Because the data compression used with this payload format is applied end-to-end, encryption may be performed after compression so there is no conflict between the two operations. A potential denial-of-service threat exists for data encodings using compression techniques that have non-uniform receiver-end computational load. The attacker can inject pathological datagrams into the stream which are complex to decode and cause the receiver to be overloaded. However, this encoding does not exhibit any significant non-uniformity. As with any IP-based protocol, in some circumstances a receiver may be overloaded simply by the receipt of too many packets, either desired or undesired. Network-layer authentication may be used to discard packets from undesired sources, but the processing cost of the authentication itself may be too high. In a multicast environment, pruning of specific sources may be implemented in future versions of IGMP [7] and in multicast routing protocols to allow a receiver to select which sources are allowed to reach it. <p>7. References 1. Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 2. ITU-T Recommendation G.722.1, available online from the ITU bookstore at http://www.itu.int. 3. Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R. and V. Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for real-time applications", RFC 1889, January 1996. (Updated by a Work in Progress.) 4. Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996. 5. Handley, M. and V. Jacobson, "SDP: Session Description Protocol", RFC 2327, April 1998. 6. Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 7. Deering, S., "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting", STD 5, RFC 1112, August 1989. 8. Acknowledgments 9. Author's Address <p>10. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Acknowledgement Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. <p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p>Herlein Internet Draft [Page 6] <p><p> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 242 bytes Desc: signature.asc Url : http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/speex-dev/attachments/20021022/f2a42c99/signature-0001.pgp