An Efficient Technique for Multicast Video Streaming

Patching and transition patching are two techniques proposed to build efficient video-on-demand (VoD) systems. Patching works by allowing a client to playback video data from a patching stream while caching video data from another multicast video stream for later playback. The patching stream can be released once video playback reaches the point where the cached data begins, and playback continues via the cache and the shared multicast channel for the rest of the session. Transition patching takes this patching technique one step further by allowing a new client to cache video data not only from a full-length multicast channel, but also from a nearby in-progress patching channel as well to further reduce resource consumption. This study further generalizes these patching techniques into a recursive patching scheme where a new client can cache video data recursively from multiple patching streams to further reduce resource consumption. This recursive patching scheme unifies the existing patching schemes as special cases. Simulation results show that it can achieve significant reductions (e.g. 60%~80%) in startup latency at the same load and with the same system resources.