VIOLA: video on local area networks

We describe a network system architecture called VIOLA (Video-on-LANs) for on-damand video distribution services on a local area network. The architecture makes use of a switched-network topology and distributed video servers, which together allow the system to be scalable from tens to thousands of users. We propose a Buffered Datagram Layer (BDL) for shielding underlying network dependencies, while providing an efficient background mode of datagram transmissions; a Multicast Reliable Datagram Protocol (MRDP), for carrying multicast video requests reliably from a client to distributed servers; and Video Transport Protocol (VTP), for efficient video block transmissions and receptions. Video are block-interleaved at the distributed servers for storage and retrieval. We present some preliminary results on a VIOLA prototype being implemented in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.