Traffic shaping, bandwidth allocation, and quality assessment for MPEG video distribution over broadband networks

Abstract

This article provides an overview of residential video delivery systems and presents the applications, benefits, and challenges of using VBR MPEG video encoding in broadband video distribution networks. The network resources required to transmit stored variable-rate MPEG can be reduced by properly analyzing and smoothing the video stream before transmission. A scheduling technique is presented which selects a traffic contract for a pre-encoded MPEG video stream with the criteria of minimizing network resources and maintaining video quality. Several effective bandwidth metrics are discussed and used to model the potential savings in network resources for the shaped streams.