multimedia challenges

• volume -- multimedia streams contain large amounts of data, which must be processed very quickly.
• synchronization -- audio and video must be synchronized so that it starts and stops at the same time, and plays at the same rate.
• delivery -- data can come from many sources, including local files, computer networks, television broadcasts, and video cameras.
• formats -- data comes in a variety of formats, such as Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI), Advanced Streaming Format (ASF), Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), and Digital Video (DV).
• devices -- the programmer does not know in advance what hardware devices will be present on the end-user's system.