Enabling Broadcast of User-Generated Live Video Without Servers

The authors are witnessing the unprecedented popularity of User-Generated-Content (UGC) on the Internet. While YouTube hosts pre-recorded video clips, in near future, they expect to see the emergence of User-Generated Live Video, for which any user can create its own temporary live video channel from a webcam or a hand-held wireless device. Hosting a large number of UG live channels on commercial servers can be very expensive. Server-based solutions also involve various economic, copyright and content control issues between users and the companies hosting their content. In this paper, leveraging on the recent successes of P2P video streaming, they study the strategies for end users to directly broadcast their own live channels to a large number of audiences without resorting to any server support.