Dimensioning Receiver Buffer Requirement for Unidirectional VBR Video Streaming over TCP

We explore the impact of the playout buffer size on the video quality and the response time in a video streaming application. Large buffer generally improves video quality, since it accommodates wide range of rate variability. However it incurs large buffering delay, and it is not suitable for many streaming applications (e.g., video sharing). In this paper, we investigate the playout buffer requirement to ensure desired video quality, given network conditions and bitstream characteristics. We develop a unidirectional VBR video streaming model and derive an analytic expression of the minimum playout buffer requirement to achieve desired video quality. Our experimental results validate the model and analysis.