On the Implementation of a Streaming Video over Peer to Peer network using Middleware Components

Video streaming applications have hitherto been supported by single server systems. A major drawback of such a solution is that it increases the server load. The server restricts the number of clients that can be simultaneously supported due to limitation in bandwidth. The constraints of a single server system can be overcome in video streaming if we exploit the endless resources available in a distributed and networked system. We explore a P2P system for streaming video applications. In this paper we build a P2P streaming video (SVP2P) service in which multiple peers co-operate to serve video segments for new requests, thereby reducing server load and bandwidth used. Our simulation shows the playback latency using SVP2P is roughly 1/4th of the latency incurred when the server directly streams the video. Bandwidth consumed for control messages (overhead) is as low as 1.5% of the total data transfered. The most important observation is that the capacity of the SVP2P grows dynamically.