1.6 Applicability Statement

RTSP is suitable for streaming delivery of real-time multimedia data. The term streaming means that the data is transmitted at some fixed rate or at some rate that is related to the rate at which the data will be consumed (for example, displayed) by the receiver.

It is appropriate to use RTSP Windows Media Extensions when there is a need for a streaming protocol that can deliver multimedia data over either UDP or TCP.

Although the Microsoft Media Server (MMS) protocol [MS-MMSP] also supports delivery of multimedia data over UDP and TCP, RTSP with the Windows Media extensions provides additional functionality that is not available in MMS. MMS is an older protocol that has been deprecated.

If the multimedia data is transmitted over TCP, the Windows Media HTTP Streaming Protocol [MS-WMSP] might be a suitable alternative. That protocol provides the same functionality as RTSP with the Windows Media extensions, except that the delivery of ASF packets is restricted to TCP.