Time, Frequency and Phase Synchronisation for Multimedia—Basics, Issues, Developments and Opportunities

In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive overview of timing. We describe the underlying concepts that comprise timing through examples and then present a range of mature, standardised and evolving techniques to improve the so-called time awareness across the full Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure over which multimedia applications operate. Although the media synchronisation community is already acutely aware of timing issues, this chapter offers some valuable insights through its holistic approach to timing.