The BRTP (Barix RTP) was designed by Barix AG (http://www.barix.com) as a simple extension to the RTP protocol to support the following:

  • Allow a client to register at a server to subscribe to a RTP stream

  • Detect client dropout quickly and reliably to prevent loading of the network with a stream that is actually not consumed

  • To provide a primitive plaintext password-based access control

  • To penetrate routers and firewalls employing Network Address Translation (NAT)

BRTP is RTP with subscription request packets added. The subscription request packet is a UDP datagram which contains only a password. If the receiver requires no access control then any UDP packet suffices.
The subscription request packets are sent periodically by the client to the server. If a packet is not received within 30 seconds, the client is disconnected. The RTP stream is sent to the return address of the BRTP packets. The BRTP packet on it's way out penetrates a NAT (for NATs where it is possible) and opens a back channel for the RTP. This way RTP can be received even on clients which don't have public IP addresses.