Analysis of Peer-Assisted Video-on-Demand Systems With Scalable Video Streams

In recent years, Peer-To-Peer (P2P) and peer-assisted streaming have emerged as promising models for low-cost multimedia distribution to large scale user communities. In this paper, the authors study streaming of scalable video streams over these systems. Scalable video streams are composed of multiple layers and can easily be adapted according to the characteristics and needs of receivers. Thus, they can efficiently support a wide spectrum of heterogeneous peers participating in a P2P streaming system. The authors present an analytical model for forecasting the long-term behavior of a P2P streaming system with scalable video streams. Their analysis takes as inputs the characteristics of a dynamic P2P streaming system and the video streams.