Multi-scalable video multicast for heterogeneous playback requirements using a perceptual utility measure

A novel best-effort utility maximization scheme for video multicast with heterogeneous clients is proposed. Clients are assumed to have heterogeneous media playback requirements and channels with different capacities. The multicast employs H.264/SVC coded video which permits combined temporal, spatial, and amplitude scalability. The perceptual effects of the scalable video on clients with different terminal capabilities are modeled, and utilized in the optimization. For various scenarios with clients of different media adaptation capabilities, the proposed optimization of multi-scalable video multicasting reveals notable utility gains over single-scalable video multicasting. With a complexity independent of the number of clients, the proposed optimization scheme is suitable for large-scale multimedia multicast.