Video quality assurance in multi-source streaming techniques

Abstract

In this paper we address the problem of designing a P2P system for distribution real-time video streams through the Internet. The main advantage of this approach is to use the available bandwidth unused by the set of machines connected to the network. The main difficulty is that these machines are typically highly dynamic, they continuously enter and leave the network. To deal with this problem, we explore a multi-source approach where the stream is decomposed into several flows sent by different peers to each client. To evaluate the impact of this approach on quality, we use PSQA, a recently proposed method that allows to obtain a good approximation of the quality as perceived by each client. In particular, we provide a variant of muti-source techniques using some redundancy in the signal, illustrating with real data how the methods allow to compensate efficiently the possible losses of frames due to peers leaving the system.