An RTP Payload Format for MIDI

The Real-Time Protocol (RTP) is an extensible transport for sending media streams over Internet Protocol packet networks. We describe a new payload format that extends RTP to transport MIDI (the Musical Instrument Digital Interface command language). The payload format encodes all commands that may legally appear on a MIDI 1.0 DIN cable. The format is suitable for interactive applications (such as the remote operation of musical instruments) and content-delivery applications (such as file streaming). The format defines tools for graceful recovery from packet loss, to support use over lossy unicast and multicast networks (including wireless networks). Stream behavior, including the MIDI rendering method, may be specified during session setup. Rendering methods are specified using the extensible Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) registry.