Network calculus applied to optimal multimedia smoothing

We consider a scenario where multimedia data are sent over a network offering a guaranteed service. A smoothing device writes the stream into a transmitting device with limited input buffer; at the destination, the decoder waits for an initial playback delay and reads the stream from the receiver buffer. We assume that some limited look-ahead is possible at the source, and that the playback buffer size is limited. First, we consider the case where the stream is delivered from the source directly to the destination buffer. We obtain closed-form expressions of the minimal required values in the case of a CBR smoothing. Then we consider the case where the stream is first transmitted through a backbone network to an intermediate server, which relays the multimedia data to the final destination via an access network. We compute the requirements on playback delay, buffer sizes and amount of look-ahead