The interleaved video frame distribution for P2P-based VoD system with VCR functionality

The peer-to-peer (P2P) network structure is widely employed for video streaming applications because of its high stability, flexible extensibility, and ability to distribute data stream loading among different peer nodes. Numerous P2P schemes have been proposed for video on demand (VoD) applications. High video source searching cost and long response latency are always issues in dealing with VCR functionality, such as jump and fast-forward/rewind, because of asynchronous interactive and random join/leave behaviors of end users. To overcome this bottleneck, an interleaved video frame distribution (IVFD) scheme is proposed to support full VCR functionality in a P2P environment without searching for new sources. Instead of acquiring video stream data from a single parent peer in the published schemes, each child peer in the IVFD scheme can simultaneously acquire interleaved video data from multiple parent peers. When a client peer carries out arbitrary VCR operations, such as jump or fast-forward/rewind, its parent peers are still able to provide intermittent video stream data for the client peer; thus, no video source search is necessary. Simulation results reveal excellent load distribution performance and response latency for VCR operations in the proposed IVFD scheme.