Experiences on peer to peer based live video steaming

In this paper, we emphasize salient experiences on peer to peer based live video streaming. First, we describe a two-layer overlay structure and a multi-sender based transmission algorithm to broadcast video programs. Although both numerical analysis and practical data reveal feasibility to support nearly 600 concurrent users in 500kbps streaming delivery, the tremendous workload imposed upon structure maintenance server limits its scalability. Therefore, in the second implementation, a gossip-based overlay protocol is deployed to provide distributed membership management, and an efficient scheduling mechanism is proposed to fetch video contents with lower delay. The experimental data from PlanetLab indicates that it ensures continuous playback, demanding bandwidth and low latency. More interestingly, the maximum concurrent users 15,239 with one common streaming server in 300kbps distribution sessions was tracked in Feb. 2005, which demonstrates that it offers a scalable and reliable streaming system for a large and highly dynamic population of end hosts