Error resilient video streaming for heterogeneous networks

Abstract

We consider the problem of video streaming for a critical private web cast, for a medium sized audience with heterogeneous nodes having different bandwidths and reliabilities. The nodes can distribute video in a peer-to-peer manner by forming a multicast tree at application level. A majority of the nodes in the network have low bandwidths and low reliability and can only receive the video stream. A simulation model has been implemented to compare single video streaming scheme with error resilience schemes with stream replication and Multiple Description Coding (MDC) [6][7]. Results indicate that MDC error resilience scheme provides lower average outage, better video quality and network utilization as packet loss percentage and node failure probability increases. We discuss the significance of path diversity in multiple multicast trees for error resilience and the number of multicast trees. © 2006 Springer-Verlag.