An efficient scheme for chaining with client-centric buffer reservation for multi-media streaming

This paper proposes a "chaining" based media content delivery algorithm which supports "VCR operations". The proposed algorithm explicitly balances the client-side requirements to support the VCR functionalities, while preserving the advantages of using the client playback device as a proxy video server, as specified in the original chaining algorithm. The paper also investigates the effect of supporting VCR operations on the performance of the proposed scheme and the impact these operations have on chaining. To this end, a study to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm, within this framework, is conducted. The results show that, for a small community of clients, increasing user activity, in terms of VCR operations performed during stream delivery, have detrimental effects on primary bandwidth reduction. Furthermore, the results show that a limited subset of VCR operations appears to boost the effectiveness of chaining. Introducing a full range of VCR functionalities, however, lead to a decrease in the amount of primary server bandwidth reduction, thereby indicating an apparent interplay between the number of clients viewing a video and the range of VCR operations supported.