A Bandwidth Dependent Multiservice Scheduling Algorithm for Variable-Bit-Rate Video Transmission in DVB-H Systems

Digital video broadcasting for handheld terminals (DVB-H) is assuming an aver growing importance for digital video transmission over wireless terminals In this context, services are transmitted in ldquopacketsrdquo or ldquoburstsrdquo periodically repeating in time and interspaced by ldquooff-timerdquo periods. To improve this time sliced transmission effectiveness, a novel technique, the variable burst time (VET) algorithm, is presented and discussed. It takes into account the multimedia data, the receiving buffer size and the available bandwidth information to adjust the service burst durations and reduce losses. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique if compared with the classical TDM transmission technique already known by DVB-H standard specifications.