Distributed media cooperation for enhanced video communication

INTRODUCTION According to yearly statistics the demand for multimedia traffic over computer networks is con- stantly on the increase (Nielsen//NetRatings, http:// www.nielsen-netratings.com/). Therefore, it is inevi- table that situations where different media streams will need to share communication resources will be- come commonplace. In such cases, it would be of interest to optimize the overall performance of the network. In other words, resources should be allo- cated across the com…

Distributed media cooperation for enhanced video communication

The author designed two algorithms for distributed cooperation among multiple video streams sharing common communication resources. The algorithms take advantage of an optimization framework that characterizes video packets such that joint resource allocation can be implemented not only over the packets of a single stream, but also across packets of different streams. The first algorithm enables collaboration among multiple video senders in an 802.11 CSMA/CA wireless network such that their joint performance is maximized. Via the algorithm, the users cooperatively establish transmission priorities based on the assigned characterizations of their video packets. The second technique allows for low-complexity joint bandwidth adaptation of multiple video streams at intermediate network nodes in the Intemet in order to maximize the overall network performance. The author analyzes the advantages of the proposed algorithms over conventional solutions employed in such scenarios. It is shown that depending on system parameters such as available network data rate the proposed techniques can provide substantial gains in end-to-end performance.