A proposal of a streaming video system adapting to various system environments and its implementation

This paper proposes a streaming video system adapting to various system environments. Until now, many studies of adapting QoS (quality of service) control methods have been made in the area of streaming video technologies in the Internet. However, these methods have not been able to provide sufficient service quality to system users under recent diversification of system environments. We therefore design the system based on three ideas. First, the system conducts switching of streaming servers. This switching makes it possible to combine multiple control mechanisms and to use the combination for QoS control. Second, the system adopts simple estimation methods of network conditions. Estimation accuracy is gradually modified while users are watching streams. Third, the system notifies information of network conditions to system users. This makes it possible to provide streaming services with high level of user satisfaction. We conducted implementation experiments using the prototype system. From these experimental results, we found out that the proposed system was adaptable to various system environments and that the QoS notification decreased the level of user dissatisfaction of service quality.