An efficient transmission mechanism for stored video

One of the challenges in building a successful video-on-demand (VOD) system is how to efficiently transmit video signals from the server to the customers. Previous methods have been based upon the real-time modeling of video signals. Since the video signals are inherently variable bit rate (VBR), it is not easy to model the signals effectively. Since the VOD system usually deals with stored video, it is possible to extract useful information in advance and use them while sending the video signal. We propose a scheme to transmit VBR video signals using a fixed bandwidth without any data loss. The proposed scheme sends some of the video data in advance so that the video can be played without interruption. The minimum amount of client's buffer space requirement and the startup delay are derived.