Guidelines for Extending the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP)

The RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) is used along with the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) to provide a control channel between media senders and receivers. This allows constructing a feedback loop to enable application adaptation and monitoring, among other uses. The basic reporting mechanisms offered by RTCP are generic, yet quite powerful and suffice to cover a range of uses. This document provides guidelines on extending RTCP if those basic mechanisms prove insufficient. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.