| In order to address the scalability problem of video-on-demand (VOD) systems, several periodic broadcast schemes have been proposed, which partition a video into segments and repetitively broadcast each segment on a separate channel. Most of the research literature focuses on minimizing the server broadcast bandwidth for a waiting time. The most efficient broadcasting schemes currently available require the same bandwidth on the client side as that on server side. In reality, however, the client side bandwidth requirement is often the limiting factor. We propose a new broadcast scheme, named Generalized Fibonacci Broadcasting (GFB), to address the issue of minimizing the client-side bandwidth requirement. GFB allows the client to download data from c (a positive integer that can be selected) concurrent broadcasting channels, each with a bandwidth of b/k (k > 0), where b (bits/sec) is the display rate. We demonstrate that, for realistic sets of parameters, GFB is the most efficient among the currently known broadcasting schemes with client bandwidth limitation. Furthermore, it gives a VOD service provider great flexibility and simplicity in implementing VOD services based on the current technologies. |
