Network Delay Jitter and Client Buffer Requirements in Distributed Video-on-Demand Systems

In this paper, we analyze the effects of delay jitter on receiver buffer requirements in distributed Videoon-Demand systems. We use a general purpose realtime producer-consumer model to describe the distributed architecture of a Video-on-Demand system. We prove a Theorem that states that the amount of data in the receiver buffer is linear in network delay jitter. We present necessary conditions for preventing buffer overflow and underflow situations. Finally, we show through numerical analysis that controlling network delay jitter results in reducing buffer requirements at the receiver.