Playout Buffer based Rate Adaptation for Scalable Video Streaming over the Internet

The use of scalable video coding scheme has been regarded as a promising solution for guaranteeing the quality of service of the video streaming over the Internet because it is a capable coding scheme to perform quality adaptation depending on network conditions. In this paper, we use a streaming model that transmits base layer using TCP and enhancement layers using DCCP, which try to provide transmission reliability of the BL and TCP friendliness. Unlike pervious works, the proposed algorithm performs rate adaptation based on playout buffer status. The PoB status of the client is sent back periodically to the server and serves as a network congestion indicator. Experimental results show that our scheme improves streaming quality comparing with pervious scheme in the case of not only constant/dynamic background flows but also VBR-encoded video sequence.