Bandwidth sensitive caching for video streaming application

Popularity of the Internet and the availability of broadband links (e.g., xDSL and cable) to residential consumers have initiated a demand for high quality video streaming. In video-on-demand-like (VoD) applications, a server responds to a client´s request by streaming a multimedia object. However, the delivered media quality is usually limited by the lowest-bandwidth link on the network path to the client. An approach that stores multi-rate (scalable) video sequence at a proxy can enhance the video quality and bandwidth efficiency. In this paper, we present bandwidth sensitive caching (BSC) strategy where variable-rate streams are cached into a proxy in order to maximize the perceived video signal quality. The proxy determines the optimum rate at which a video needs to be stored base on the client capabilities and network link characteristics. Simulation results show that the proposed BSC algorithm is adaptive and robust to change in delivery condition, yet it is still simple and efficient for deployment onto proxies.