Broadcasting scheme with low client buffers and bandwidths for video-on-demand applications

• DOI: 10.1007/s11042-008-0245-9
• Publication Date: 2008-11-11T21:35:58Z
• Authors: Hsiang-Fu Yu; Hung-Chang Yang; Yao-Tien Wang; Ping-Lin Fan; Chu-Yi Chien
• Keywords: 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 02 engineering and technology

Efficient data broadcasting is independent of request arrivals, and is thus highly promising when transmitting popular videos. A conventionally adopted broadcasting method is periodic broadcasting, which divides a popular video into segments, which are then simultaneously broadcast on different data channels. Once clients want to watch the video, they download the segments from these channels. The skyscraper broadcasting (SkB) scheme supports clients with small bandwidths. An SkB client requires only two-channel bandwidths to receive video segments. This work proposes a reverse SkB (RSkB) scheme, which extends SkB by reducing buffering spaces. The RSkB is mathematically shown to achieve on-time video delivery and two-channel client bandwidths. A formula for determining the maximum number of segments buffered by an RSkB client is presented. Finally, an analysis of RSkB reveals that its client buffer requirements are usually 25---37% lower than SkB. Extensive simulations of RSkB further demonstrate that RSkB yields lower client buffer demand than other proposed systems.