Optimizing the quality of scalable video streams on P2P networks

— The volume of multimedia data, including video, served through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks is growing rapidly. Unfortunately, high bandwidth transfer rates are rarely available to P2P clients on a consistent basis. In addition, the rates are more variable and less predictable than in traditional client-server environments, making it difficult to use P2P networks to stream video for on-line viewing rather than for delayed playback. In this paper, we develop and evaluate on-line algorithms that coordinate the pre-fetching of scalably-coded variable bitrate video. These algorithms are ideal for P2P environments in that they require no knowledge of the future variability or availability of bandwidth, yet produce a playback whose average rate and variability are comparable to the best off-line prefetching algorithms that have total future knowledge. To show this, we develop an off-line algorithm that provably optimizes quality and variability metrics. Using simulations based on actual ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: SIGMETRICS
• Authors: Raj Kumar Rajendran, Dan Rubenstein
• Keywords: Off-line Algorithm, Off-line Prefetching Algorithms, On-line Algorithms, SIGMETRICS 2004