Designing a scalable video-on-demand system

As network access costs, especially over the last mile, decrease and broadband access becomes more available to the home user, the idea of video-on-demand (VoD) as an application has made a comeback. Previously, VoD systems could only be supported on a local intranet; however, when considering deploying a global VoD service, the issue of scalability becomes important. Indeed, many low-bitrate Internet streaming services have led the way in distributed video server design. We need to re-examine the issues of designing a global VoD service that is not only scalable, but also cost effective - the most important driver in deciding whether VoD will survive its latest incarnation, or whether it will fade away to bide its time again.