BiToS: Enhancing BitTorrent for Supporting Streaming Applications

— BitTorrent (BT) in the last years has been one of the most effective mechanisms for P2P content distribution. Although BT was created for distribution of time insensitive content, in this work we try to identify what are the minimal changes needed in the BT’s mechanisms in order to support streaming. The importance of this capability is that the peer will now have the ability to start enjoying the video before the complete download of the video file. This ability is particularly important in highly polluted environments, since the peer can evaluate the quality of the video content early and thus preserve its valuable resources. In a nutshell, our approach gives higher download priority to pieces that are close to be reproduced by the player. This comes in contrast to the original BT protocol, where pieces are downloaded in an out-of-order manner based solely on their rareness. In particular, our approach tries to strike the balance between downloading pieces in: (a) playing orde...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Aggelos Vlavianos, Marios Iliofotou, Michalis Faloutsos
• Keywords: BT’s Mechanisms, Communications, INFOCOM 2006, P2P Content Distribution, Time Insensitive Content