A Video Server cost/performance Estimator tool

The Video Server Estimator (VSE) is an analytical tool which allows a user to perform a cost/performance analysis of video servers with hierarchical storage. The underlying model comprises multiple systems, main memory, expanded storage, disks and a tape library. The main objective of the tool is to optimally allocate the video files to different storage media based on the system parameters and the video file request probability distribution. The cost and the size of the video server that can accommodate a customer profile are determined. Furthermore, the impact of design parameters on the cost and performance are examined through a parametric analysis.     

IP流媒体技术在电视转播系统中的应用

概述了IP流媒体技术的特点、原理,并与其他技术方案进行了对比,重点论述了利用该技术组建电视转播系统的过程,为在类似案例情况下选择技术方案提供实践依据。     

P2PVOD中基于时间片的网络逻辑拓扑构造

针对现有P2PVOD系统中因执行拖动操作的节点对索引服务器的完全依赖性而造成的索引服务器压力大、拖动请求响应时间长的问题,本文构造一种基于时间片的网络逻辑拓扑.构造该拓扑的基本思路:目标节目的播放时长等分为若干时间片;根据当前播放时间确定各个节点所处的时间片;基于节点的时间邻近度在处于相同时间片或不同时间片的节点之间建立逻辑关系,构成基于时间片的网络逻辑拓扑.在该拓扑中,执行了拖动操作的节点不再请求索引服务器,而是依据节点之间的逻辑关系及时间邻近度进行拖动后的拓扑重构,从而消除了对索引服务器的依赖.仿真实验表明,该拓扑结构有效提高了系统整体服务能力.     

Design and Configuration Rationales for Digital Video Storage and Delivery Systems

Recent advances in computing technology have brought multimedia information processing to prominence. The ability to digitize, store, retrieve, process, and transport analog information in digital form has changed the dimensions of information handling. Several architectural and network configurations have been proposed for efficient and reliable digital video delivery systems. However, these proposals succeed only in addressing subsets of the whole problem. In this paper, we discuss the characteristics of video services. These include Cable Television, Pay-Per-View, and Video Repository Centers. We also discuss requirements for Video On Demand services. With respect to these video services, we analyze two important video properties: image quality and response time. We discuss and present configurations of a Digital Video Delivery System (DVDS) from three general system components - servers, clients, and connectivities. Pertinent issues in developing each component are also analyzed. We also present an architecture of a DVDS that can support the various functionalities that exist in the various video services. Lastly, we discuss data allocation strategies which impact performance of interactive video on demand (IVOD). We present preliminary results from a study using a limited form of mirroring to support high performance IVOD.     

基于P2P方式的视频点播模型

提出了一种P2P方式的视频点播模型,兼有网状与树状的特点,具有很高的稳健型与组织性。有效提高了视频点播的利用率。     

一个真实VoD/P2P系统Novasky的设计与实现

近年来,基于对等网络的视频点播系统(VoD/P2P)备受人们关注.这类系统的实现还面临诸多挑战,如存储策略、用户激励、媒体版权等.本文提出一种高效率、低成本、易扩展的VoD/P2P系统设计方案Novasky.与已有系统相比,Novasky的最大不同是引入了编码存储策略与虚拟货币机制.经过三年多的开发与完善,Novasky已发展成为一个跨平台的分布式系统.它是少数几个使用人数较多的研究性VoD/P2P系统之一.自2009年9月在清华大学开放使用以来,已接受1100多用户对346个视频的6288次点播,累计点播数据量2.1TB.     

Disk placement for arbitrary-rate playback in an interactive video server

Multimedia data, especially continuous media including video and audio objects, represent a rich and natural stimulus for humans, but require large amount of storage capacity and real-time processing. In this paper, we describe how to organize video data efficiently on multiple disks in order to support arbitrary-rate playback requested by different users independently. Our approach is to segment and decluster video objects and to place the segments in multiple disks using a restricted round-robin scheme, called prime round-robin (PRR). Its placement scheme provides uniform load balance of disks for arbitrary retrieval rate as well as normal playback, since it eliminates hot spots. Moreover, it does not require any additional disk bandwidth to support VCR-like operations such as fast-forward and rewind. We have studied the various effects of placement and retrieval schemes in a storage server by simulation. The results show that PRR offers even disk accesses, and the failure in reading segment by deadline occurs only at the beginning of new operations. In addition, the number of users admitted is not decreased, regardless of arbitrary-rate playback requests.     

Efficient schemes for broadcasting popular videos

We provide a formal framework for studying broadcasting schemes and design a family of schemes for broadcasting popular videos, the greedy disk-conserving broadcasting (GDB) family. We analyze the resource requirements for GDB, i.e., the number of server broadcast channels, the client storage space, and the client I/O bandwidth required by GDB. Our analysis shows that all of our proposed broadcasting schemes are within a small factor of the optimal scheme in terms of the server bandwidth requirement. Furthermore, GDB exhibits a tradeoff between any two of the three resources. We compare our scheme with a recently proposed broadcasting scheme, skyscraper broadcasting (SB). With GDB, we can reduce the client storage space by as much as 50% or the number of server channels by as much as 30% at the cost of a small additional increase in the amount of client I/O bandwidth. If we require the client I/O bandwidth of GDB to be identical to that of SB, GDB needs only 70% of the client storage space required by SB or one less server channel than SB does. In addition, we show that with small client I/O bandwidth, the resource requirements of GDB are close to the minimum achievable by any disk-conserving broadcasting scheme.     

The S2 Piggybacking Policy

In video-on-demand systems, users expect to watch a film right after its selection. Nonetheless, such a short response time is feasible only if there is available bandwidth. In line with that, several techniques have been proposed to reduce the huge bandwidth demand on video servers. In this paper, we introduce the Piggybacking policy S², which adds a second level of optimization to the Snapshot policy. Moreover, we introduce a heuristic to reduce the complexity to generate the tree of superimposed video streams.     

Interactive Television Trials and Marketplace Experiences

This article provides a review of ITV trials and services from the 1970s through the mid 1990s. It presents an annotated history of ITV and draws a number of lessons about content, pricing, consumer appeal and advertising within an interactive television context. ITV has alternated between peaks of marketing hyperbole and valleys of skepticism. A realistic path of development may now be emerging.