- Hard real time : all deadlines are met. missing only one deadline is overall system failure.
- Soft real time : subset of deadlines are met. missing some deadlines is output quality degradation. guarantees maximum delays from deadlines
- Near real time : deadlines are almost met. time delays are introduced. this is actually similar to but not the same as soft real time as near real time does not guarantees max delays.
- Best effort : deadlines are far to be met.
The deadlines above are in milliseconds or microseconds.
Beyond realtime is live. (cf. wiki realtime computing)
