Quality adaptive peer-to-peer streaming using scalable video coding

Abstract

P2P (Peer-to-Peer) video streaming has attracted much attention recently. However, streaming over P2P is still best effort and suffers from lack of adaptation. Therefore, video streaming over P2P either works or not. In this paper, we propose a P2P streaming system with an inherent support for adaptation. By leveraging scalable video coding, our system is able to adapt to different requirements and constraints that heterogeneous peers have in today's Internet. We make a subtle distinction between initial and progressive quality adaptation, which allows for precise adaptation to various parameters of the system and the P2P network. Our decision-taking algorithms for quality adaptation help not only in perfectly matching QoS to resources but also in bringing the P2P network to self organization. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.