MPEG-2 streaming of full interactive content

In this paper, we present an efficient method for supporting full interactive functions of MPEG-2 video streaming. The method is based on storing multiple differently encoded versions of the video stream at the server. A normal version is used for normal playback, while several other versions are used for fast/slow/jump forward (rewind)/rewind at variable speedups. Full interactive functions are produced by encoding every Nth frame of the original uncompressed movie as a sequence of I-P(M) frames. Mechanisms for controlling the interactive streams are also presented and their effectiveness is assessed through extensive simulations. Traditional interactive functions are supported with a minimum of additional resources on the server/network bandwidth and decoder complexity.