A multi-policy, cooperative playback control protocol

This work proposes the modeling and the analysis through simulation of a multi-policy, application-level multicast protocol for the cooperative control of media streams transmitted by a multimedia server. The proposed protocol basically relies on a lower-level protocol incorporating a multicast-based coordination mechanism that reduces competition among clients for accessing a shared resource. Performance evaluation of the lower-level protocol was carried out on multicast control trees using a discrete-event simulator. Simulation results showed that the lower-level protocol provides higher performances than random floor control protocols which do not exploit coordination among clients.