Building an Adaptive Multimedia System using the Utility Model

We present our experience of building a prototype system based on the Utility Model for adaptive multimedia. The Utility Model is proposed to capture the issues and dynamics in multi-session multimedia systems where the quality of service (QoS) of individual sessions is adapted to dynamic changes of available resources and of user preferences. We present the design and implementation of our prototype multimedia system, and report experimental results. We demonstrate that the Utility Model supports two types of adaptation: reactive adaptation for systems where only a subset of the applications follows the adaptation model, and proactive adaptation for systems where all the applications follow the adaptation model. Our results demonstrate that the Utility Model may be effectively used for dynamic quality adaptation in real-time multimedia systems.