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== Support for multiple bitrates ==

''Status: operational prototype available''


= Background =

The Internet has become in the last years more and more a means of conveyance for multimedia delivering. Many solutions have been proposed to gain high quality of service for video on demand in client-server environments, with adaptive algorithms that adjust the bit-rate of a video stream depending on the client's available bandwidth. Providing video on demand over decentralized peer-to-peer systems is an active research field. The variable bit-rate environment that characterizes peer-to-peer networks causes significant difficulties to ensure quality of service and playback continuity for video on demand applications. 


= Description =

We address the challenge of serving high quality video on demand by designing and implementing a multi bit-rate video on demand architecture for peer-to-peer networks. We propose a switching scheme, an encoding methodology and a novel algorithm for multiple bit-rate video streaming over peer-to-peer networks.

Identical video content is encoded into three different sets of streams with different average bit-rates. 
The novel multi bit-rate algorithm will switch dynamically between the three sets of streams depending on the available bandwidth.
Through a series of experiments we present the effectiveness of this architecture in fluctuating bandwidth scenarios.

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= Operational prototype =

An operational prototype is available in Tribler's svn repositories under my own branch:
[https://svn.tribler.org/abc/branches/riccardo/]

For more information please refer to [https://svn.tribler.org/abc/branches/riccardo/readme.txt]