An adaptive rate-control streaming mechanism with optimal buffer utilization

In this paper, an end-to-end real-time adaptive protocol for multimedia transmission is presented. The bandwidth is dynamically allocated according to the network status, and the client buffer occupancy and playback requirement. The transmission rate is determined by the quadratic probing algorithm that can obtain the maximal utilization of the client buffer and minimal occupation of the network bandwidth. It is also coupled with a congestion control mechanism that can effectively decrease the packet loss rate during network congestion. We investigate the performance of our quadratic probing algorithm in different congestion levels under both the local area net (LAN) and Internet environments. Performance analysis reveals that our approach is more robust in avoiding overflows and underflows in different network congestion levels, and adapting to the changing network delays. Comparisons are made with the fixed rate approach and the rate by playback requirement approach. The experimental results show that our proposed real-time protocol with the rate adjusting quadratic probing algorithm is efficient in utilizing the network resources and decreasing the packet loss ratios.