A selection technique for replicated multicast video servers

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a selection technique for replicated multicast video servers. We assume that each replicated video server transmits the same video source as different quality levels of multicast streams. Using an IGMP facility like m-trace, each receiver monitors packet count information of those streams on routers and periodically selects the one which is expected to provide low loss rate and to be suitable for the current available bandwidth of receivers. Moreover, collection of packet count information is done in a scalable and efficient manner by sharing the collected information across receivers. Our experimental results using the network simulator have shown that our method could achieve much higher quality satisfaction of receivers, under the reasonable amount of tracing traffic.