Skyscraper broadcasting

Abstract

We investigate a novel multicast technique, called Skyscraper Broadcasting (SB), for video-on-demand applications. We discuss the data fragmentation technique, the broadcasting strategy, and the client design. We also show the correctness of our technique, and derive mathematical equations to analyze its storage requirement. To assess its performance, we compare it to the latest designs known as Pyramid Broadcasting (PB) and Permutation-Based Pyramid Broadcasting (PPB). Our study indicates that PB offers excellent access latency. However, it requires very large storage space and disk bandwidth at the receiving end. PPB is able to address these problems. However, this is accomplished at the expense of a larger access latency and more complex synchronization. With SB, we are able to achieve the low latency of PB while using only 20% of the buffer space required by PPB.