Bandwidth-aware multiple multicast tree formation for P2P scalable video streaming using hierarchical clusters

Peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming is a promising method for multimedia distribution over the Internet, yet many problems remain to be solved such as providing the best quality of service to each peer in proportion to its available resources, low-delay, and fault tolerance. In this paper, we propose a new bandwidth-aware multiple multicast tree formation procedure built on top of a hierarchical cluster based P2P overlay architecture for scalable video (SVC) streaming. The tree formation procedure considers number of sources, SVC layer rates available at each source, as well as delay and available bandwidth over links in an attempt to maximize the quality of received video at each peer. Simulations are performed on NS2 with 500 nodes to demonstrate that the overall performance of the system in terms of average received video quality of all peers is significantly better if peers with higher available bandwidth are placed higher up in the trees and peers with lower bandwidth are near the leaves.