A comprehensive architecture for continuous media email

Continuous media (CM) email is email that contains media that is rendered over time, such as audio and video, and sender-stored delivery of CM email is when the sender stores the CM message content and streams it to the recipient upon request. In this paper we propose solutions to the key problems resulting from sender-stored delivery of CM email. We begin by reviewing the sender-stored delivery model and its benefits; then we identify its weaknesses and propose solutions to them. First, there is the QoS problem, which we address by proposing a combination of sender-side and recipient-side storage. Second, there is the issue of managing the sender's storage, which now contains CM data that the recipient may wish to access at unknown points in time. We outline several solutions to the problem of message deletion. Third, new approaches are needed for forwarding and replying when sender-side storage is used -- we propose a new set of techniques and discuss their advantages.