If you have a built-in multimedia system in your car chances are there’s a MOST-based (Media-Oriented Systems Transport) solution in there. MOST is a growing and complex standard, and this book is all you need to understand it and potentially develop applications using it.
The book is a collection of articles about MOST and its architecture and implementation. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field and the chapters work surprisingly well with each other—providing excellent depth and technical details while being a relatively easy read for anyone with networking background. I would not want to start from scratch with this but, any networking expertise such as Ethernet or CAN will definitely help.
The book starts with a history of MOST moving onto basic vehicle network architecture. The overview of the MOST architecture is required reading for anyone new to MOST. This is followed by excellent chapters on the application framework and MOST protocols. There is more than one.
Not much is left out. There are chapters on the physical layer including fiber and wired links and network management coverage as well as coverage of the Intelligent Network Interface Controller (INIC) and Network Interface Controller (NIC). This would be more than enough but we are only halfway through the book.
Testing is often left out of many technical discussions but it is included here along with a discussion on compliance testing. More advanced topics such as MOST gateways and volume production of MOST systems are near the end. An appendix compares MOST, Ethernet, and IEEE 1394 as automotive networking alternatives. It might have been a good chapter at the start of the book but at least it was not left out.
If you need to get the most of Most, then MOST: The Automotive Multimedia Network is what you want the most.