Affects of SP-Pictures on bitstream switching through monotonically decreasing rate schedulers for streaming of H.264/AVC coded video

In this paper we analyze the affects of switching frames (SP-frames) on the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters for streaming of H.264/AVC coded video bitstreams. In order to initiate streaming, the initial bandwidth requirement is estimated using monotonically decreasing rate scheduler (downstairs reservation function). We have observed that, insertion of the SP pictures can change the characteristics of the downstairs reservation function. These changes are critically analyzed and a solution is proposed in order to design efficient switching algorithm to achieve the best QoS. Extensive simulations are performed to investigate the changes in the downstairs reservation scheme with the inserted SP Pictures and the proposed algorithm under the H.264/AVC framework.