Cost-distortion optimized streaming media over DiffServ networks

We address the problem of multimedia streaming over DiffServ networks that offer various qualities of service (QoS) at different price points. In particular, we seek cost-distortion optimized transmission policies that minimize the distortion seen by the client under a cost constraint. Our results show that for on-demand streaming of stored media, DiffServ networks provide little or no gain over networks that offers only a single, cost-effective, QoS. However, for real-time conversational communication or multicast streaming, optimized transmission over DiffServ networks can perform better than optimized transmission over any single QoS by over 2 dB at the same cost.