Video multicast in (large) local area networks

We consider the problem of distributing high-quality video signals over IP multicast in large local area networks (LANs), under realtime delay constraints, and with software-only processing. In a large LAN (such as the network of a university campus, or the network of a large company), the source of channel heterogeneity that the video communications system must cope with is not that of different bandwidth constraints available to each receiver, but it is essentially variations in the available CPU power that each receiver has in order to decode the incoming signal. We propose a new architecture for a video multicast system, present the design of the different components of this system, and show results obtained in a real implementation. Our feeds consist of video encoded at about 3 Mbits/sec and 16 frames/sec, capable of tolerating the loss of about 300 Kbits/sec worth of data. Decoding is performed on Linux PCs, and the quality of our reconstructed signals degrades gracefully with the speed of the CPU on which the receiver runs.