Seamless, reliable, video multicast in wireless ad hoc networks

One main problem of video multicasting for heterogeneous destinations is the assignment of video descriptions and the construction of multicast tree. However, the assignment of MD video and the construction of multicast tree can greatly affect the user satisfaction (i.e., affect the quality of the received video). In this thesis, we introduce novel approaches to improve the user satisfaction for a set of heterogeneous multicast destinations. The main idea of our approaches is to employ the independent-description property of MDC along with multiple multicast trees. However, many questions are raised: How multiple multicast trees should be constructed? And how MD video should be assigned? Is it better to construct multiple multicast trees first and then assign the video descriptions? Or is it better to assign the video descriptions first and we then construct multiple multicast trees? Should we perform that in a distributed manner or in a centralized one? To answer these questions, we propose different algorithms to construct multiple multicast trees and to assign MD video. The proposed algorithms are: Serial MDC, Distributed MDC, and Centralized MDC. Furthermore, we use our proposed algorithms to develop different multicast protocols for video multicast over wireless ad hoc networks. These protocols take many issues into consideration, rejoining and joining a multicast group, multicast trees maintenance, and mobility of nodes, for example.;Keywords: Multicast, Wireless ad hoc networks, Video streaming, Multiple description coding...