Data allocation and spatio-temporal implications for video-on-demand systems

As the number of video streams to be supported by a digital video delivery system (DVDS) increases, we more and more start to understand that the ability to reliably and cost-efficiently support a considerable number of video streams (in the magnitude of tens of thousands) largely depends on software capabilities. Even in the presence of the best hardware configuration (not ignoring software vs hardware costs), the software exploitation of the hardware capabilities is of paramount importance. It is imperative that current software developments account for the eventual scalability of the number of video streams without commensurate increase in hardware. We present strategies for the management of video streams in order to maintain and satisfy their space and time requirements. We present a detailed analysis of the issues related to queuing I/O requests and data buffering. The designs for the arrangement and scheduling of I/O requests and data buffers are presented with the objective of guaranteeing the required data availability rates for continuous media display