Video Broadcasting Protocol for Streaming Applications with Cooperative Clients

Abstract

Video broadcasting is one of the efficient methods in implementing large-scale video-on-demand (VoD) systems. Managing large number of concurrent channels in a video server is the main barrier to implement Harmonic Broadcast (HB) in VoD applications. In this chapter, we propose a new transmission protocol denoted as Harmonic-Based Peer-to-Peer Broadcasting (HPB) to release the burden of HB by dispersing a large portion of workload over a number of clients denoted peer servers. As the bandwidth requirement of each segment in HB is different, we first develop a segment placement algorithm to balance the workload among peer servers. We then study the dynamic nature of peer-to-peer (P2P) paradigm on the design of the system. An analytical model is developed to determine the optimal number of peer servers required for the system under certain level of availability such that the workload of the central server can reach a target level. The results show that the workload of central server can be significantly reduced.