Ofer Hadar

By applying video smoothing techniques to real-time video transmission, the peak rate and rate variability of compressed video streams can be significantly reduced. Moreover, statistical multiplexing of the smoothed traffic can substantially improve network utilization. In this paper we propose a new smoothing scheme, which exploits statistical multiplexing gain that can be obtained after smoothing of individual video streams. We present a new bandwidth allocation algorithm that allows for responsive interactivity. The local re-smoothing algorithm is carried out using an iterative process. In the proposed scheme the smoothed video streams are divided into fixed intervals and then a new transmission schedule for each interval is calculated. Partitioning the whole stream into sections enables parallel processing of the smoothing algorithm in real-time before transmission. This approach allows partial transmission of the multiplexed stream while smoothing other intervals. The simulation results show a significant reduction in peak rate and rate variability of the aggregated stream, compared to the non-smoothing case. Therefore the proposed scheme allows us to increase the number of simultanusally-served video streams.