Distributed Media Transcoding Using a P2P Network of Set Top Boxes

P2P networks have traditionally been used as an enabler for distributed storage and file sharing. With consumer electronics (CE) devices becoming more complex, we can expect a P2P network of CE devices to enable sharing of other resources such as CPU cycles and memory for certain targeted applications. In this paper we present a technique which can enable a P2P network of set top boxes to achieve the computationally intensive task of video transcoding and streaming to other CE devices. We show how memory and CPU cycles can be shared in an optimal way using a 0-1 knapsack formulation.