Media.Player

A Distributed Content Replication Algorithm for Peer-to-peer Video-on-demand System

Summary

Traditional video-on-demand (VoD) is based on the client-server approach. It is expensive and not scalable. In recent years, the Peer-to-Peer approach was first demonstrated to work for live content streaming, and later for VoD streaming as well. Various efforts are working on building a P2P-based VoD platform, for example using set-top boxes (STBs). VoD streaming is definitely harder to accomplish (than live content streaming) since peers are less likely to have the same content to share with each other. The lack of synchrony (in VoD) is compensated by the following two remedial features in P2P VoD systems: (a) each peer contributes more storage to replicate content; (b) each peer is capable of uploading content different than what is currently consumed (downloaded) locally. The effectiveness of this remedy depends on whether the right mix of content is placed at different peers, which is the P2P replication problem at hand. Hence, P2P replication is a central design issue in P2P VoD systems. The present invention is about a content replication algorithm for P2P VoD applications. It helps the peers to make an optimal replication decision (what contents should be replicated locally) so that under dynamic movie access rate/popularity conditions, their upload capacity can be utilized as much as possible. In addition, such algorithm is designed to work in a distributed manner.

Supplementary Information

Inventor: Zhou, Yipeng | Fu, Zhengjia | Chiu, Dah Ming
Priority Number: US8555323B2
IPC Current: H04N0007173
US Class: 725087 | 725086
Assignee Applicant: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Title: Methods for replicating media contents and P2P VoD systems
Usefulness: Methods for replicating media contents and P2P VoD systems
Summary: Method for replicating media contents of a media unit i.e. movie, into peers e.g. client peers of a P2P VoD system and set-top boxes of an Internet protocol TV (IPTV) system (all claimed).
Novelty: Method for replicating media contents of media unit i.e. movie, into peers e.g. client peers of peer-to-peer video-on-demand system, involves replacing selected media unit by candidate media unit

Industry

ICT/Telecom

Sub Category

Multimedia

Application No.

10/ENG/377

Others

Inventor(s): Professor CHIU Dah Ming, Department of Information Engineering Patent Status: US Patent Pending Licensing Status: Available for licensing

Country/Region

Hong Kong