Performance of a multiple description streaming media content delivery network

Content delivery networks (CDNs) have been widely used to provide reduced delay and packet loss, fault tolerance, and improved scalability for web content delivery. Additional benefits are provided for video streaming when one designs a Streaming Media CDN (SM-CDN) for either conventional single description (SD) or multiple description (MD) coding. Specifically, when precise network conditions and topology are known, simulations show that an MD-SM-CDN can provide 20 to 40% reduction in distortion over a conventional SD-SM-CDN, even when the underlying CDN is not designed with MD streaming in mind [1]. This paper examines the performance of an MD-SM-CDN as a function of different network topologies and loss conditions, and compares it with a conventional SD-SM-CDN. This examination provides insight into an MD-SM-CDN’s performance when knowledge of network topology and conditions is imprecise or uncertain. Our simulations indicate that an MD-SM-CDN can provide improved performance over a conventional SD-SM-CDN over a wide range of network topologies and loss conditions.