Adaptive Layered Multimedia Transmissions over Wireless Networks

Layered transmission is a promising solution to multimedia transmission over Wireless Networks. However, since the number of layers is practically limited, noticeable mismatches would occur between the coarse-grained layer subscription levels and the heterogeneous and dynamic rate requirements from the receivers. In this paper, we propose Adaptive Layered Multicast (ALM) that exploits the increasing computing and communications capabilities of wireless devices. We show that by having few multicast nodes (about 10% the number of receivers) to encode and decode the video, an improvement of more than 30% in bandwidth efficiency could be achieved.