On-line advancement of transmission plans in video-on-demand

We detail an algorithm for the transmission of video-on-demand, which allows transmissions to be advanced dynamically when there is enough bandwidth. The effect is a transmission speed-up and consequently the freeing of bandwidth reservations in the future. This freed bandwidth can therefore be used by other transmissions. We evaluate two basic criteria for producing these advancements, and also detail how this scheme can be combined with other existing on-demand transmission methods. In our experiments we have combined it with an implementation of patching. We compare the performance of our algorithm with this model, and also with a system without merging taken as a reference. We demonstrate that, during the high audience period, delays resulting from our approach are about 44 % lower than without advancements, and we also state the importance of the criteria used for these advancements.