Buffering Techniques for Delivery of Compressed Video in Video-on-Demand Systems

Many emerging technologies such as video conferencing, video-on-demand, and digital libraries require the efficient delivery of compressed video streams. For applications that require the delivery of compressed stored multimedia streams, the prior knowledge available about these compressed streams can aid in the allocation of server and network resources. By using a client-side buffer, the resource requirements from the server and network can be minimized. This book presents a comprehensive description of buffering techniques for the delivery of compressed, prerecorded multimedia data. While these techniques can be applied to any compressed data streams, this book focusses primarily on the delivery of video streams because of the large resource requirements that they can consume. The book first describes buffering techniques for the continuous playback of stored video sources. In particular, several bandwidth smoothing (or buffering) algorithms that are provably optimal under certain conditions are presented. To provide a well-rounded discussion, the book then describes extensions that aid in the ability to provide interactive delivery of video across networks.
Specifically, reservation techniques that take into account interactive functions such as fast-forward and rewind are described. In addition, extensions to the bandwidth smoothing algorithms presented in the first few chapters are described. These algorithms are designed with interactive, continuous playback of stored video in mind and are also provably optimal under certain constraints.