Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
12. RTP Profiles and Payload Format Specifications

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12. RTP Profiles and Payload Format Specifications

12. RTP Profiles and Payload Format Specifications

A complete specification of RTP for a particular application will require one or more companion documents of two types described here: profiles, and payload format specifications.

RTP may be used for a variety of applications with somewhat differing requirements. The flexibility to adapt to those requirements is provided by allowing multiple choices in the main protocol specification, then selecting the appropriate choices or defining extensions for a particular environment and class of applications in a separate profile document. Typically an application will operate under only one profile so there is no explicit indication of which profile is in use. A profile for audio and video applications may be found in the companion Internet-Draft draft-ietf-avt-profile for

The second type of companion document is a payload format specification, which defines how a particular kind of payload data, such as H.261 encoded video, should be carried in RTP. These documents are typically titled "RTP Payload Format for XYZ Audio/Video Encoding". Payload formats may be useful under multiple profiles and may therefore be defined independently of any particular profile. The profile documents are then responsible for assigning a default mapping of that format to a payload type value if needed.

Within this specification, the following items have been identified for possible definition within a profile, but this list is not meant to be exhaustive:

RTP data header
The octet in the RTP data header that contains the marker bit and payload type field may be redefined by a profile to suit different requirements, for example with more or fewer marker bits (Section 5.3).

Payload types
Assuming that a payload type field is included, the profile will usually define a set of payload formats (e.g., media encodings) and a default static mapping of those formats to payload type values. Some of the payload formats may be defined by reference to separate payload format specifications. For each payload type defined, the profile must specify the RTP timestamp clock rate to be used (Section 5.1).

RTP data header additions
Additional fields may be appended to the fixed RTP data header if some additional functionality is required across the profile's class of applications independent of payload type (Section 5.3).

RTP data header extensions
The contents of the first 16 bits of the RTP data header extension structure must be defined if use of that mechanism is to be allowed under the profile for implementation-specific extensions (Section 5.3.1).

RTCP packet types
New application-class-specific RTCP packet types may be defined and registered with IANA.

RTCP report interval
A profile should specify that the values suggested in Section 6.2 for the constants employed in the calculation of the RTCP report interval will be used. Those are the RTCP fraction of session bandwidth, the minimum report interval, and the bandwidth split between senders and receivers. A profile may specify alternate values if they have been demonstrated to work in a scalable manner.

SR/RR extension
An extension section may be defined for the RTCP SR and RR packets if there is additional information that should be reported regularly about the sender or receivers (Section 6.3.3).

SDES use
The profile may specify the relative priorities for RTCP SDES items to be transmitted or excluded entirely (Section 6.2.2); an alternate syntax or semantics for the CNAME item (Section 6.4.1); the format of the LOC item (Section 6.4.5); the semantics and use of the NOTE item (Section 6.4.7); or new SDES item types to be registered with IANA.

Security
A profile may specify which security services and algorithms should be offered by applications, and may provide guidance as to their appropriate use (Section 9).

String-to-key mapping
A profile may specify how a user-provided password or pass phrase is mapped into an encryption key.

Underlying protocol
Use of a particular underlying network or transport layer protocol to carry RTP packets may be required.

Transport mapping
A mapping of RTP and RTCP to transport-level addresses, e.g., UDP ports, other than the standard mapping defined in Section 10 may be specified.

Encapsulation
An encapsulation of RTP packets may be defined to allow multiple RTP data packets to be carried in one lower-layer packet or to provide framing over underlying protocols that do not already do so (Section 10).

It is not expected that a new profile will be required for every application. Within one application class, it would be better to extend an existing profile rather than make a new one in order to facilitate interoperation among the applications since each will typically run under only one profile. Simple extensions such as the definition of additional payload type values or RTCP packet types may be accomplished by registering them through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and publishing their descriptions in an addendum to the profile or in a payload format specification.


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Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
12. RTP Profiles and Payload Format Specifications