Discrete interactive staggered broadcasting

Video on demand (VoD) is a multimedia service which allows a remote user to select and then view video at his convenience at any time he wants. A VoD system is usually intended to provide VCR-like functions and capabilities. Required bandwidth and latency time, defined as user waiting time, are the most critical issues in VoD systems. While the majority of previous works have focused on minimizing the required bandwidth and the latency time, little attention has been given to interactivity handling. Interactive solutions propose either a very limited interactivity or require a server intervention to handle VCR operations, leading to an additional use of bandwidth. We describe a new broadcast protocol, named discrete interactive staggered broadcasting, DISB. This protocol treats interactivity through local-client resources, regardless of the number of downloading channels used. The evaluation of the DISB protocol is conducted through an analytical study. This study shows the DISB client buffer behavior, the client waiting time when performing a jump forward operation, the limit of a fast forward one and how DISB performs comparing to other staggered broadcasting protocols.