Live Admission Control for Video Streaming

Abstract: The core aspect of most multimedia applications is the transmission of Variable Bit Rate (VBR) video streams requiring a sustained relatively high bandwidth with stringent Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee. In such systems, a statistical bandwidth estimation is especially relevant as it is indispensable for implementing an efficient admission control. In this paper a novel measurement-based admission control algorithm has been developed for video distribution systems. Such an algorithm estimates the bandwidth occupied by the actual video streams, observing their temporal evolution in a chosen measurement window. In particular, for each video stream, the estimation procedure needs an online measurement of the bandwidth values assumed successively and their persistence time. An exponential weighted moving average filter is used for smoothing the estimated values. Finally, some measurement of video traffic are shown, discussing the effectiveness of the considered solution.