Streaming Stored Video over AIMD Transport Protocols

We study the problem of using proxy servers to stream video stored at a geographically separate location. The separation of the server and the storage introduces a nonnegligible delay in retrieving video frames in real time. To ensure network stability, we use an additive-increase and multiplicative-decrease transport protocol to support the streaming process. We develop an effective scheme to achieve high, consistent streaming quality. The heart of the scheme is the control of buffer occupancy at the proxy server. We model the buffer as a bilinear dynamical system with Poisson disturbance and develop three buffer controllers. Our empirical study proves the effectiveness of the streaming scheme. Moreover, we find that the controllers exploiting the buffer model demonstrate performance significantly superior to that of model-free controllers in overcoming the adverse impact of the control delay.