Multi-source video multicast in peer-to-peer networks

We propose a novel framework for multi-source video streaming in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Multiple videos are distributed to all requesting peers exploiting full collaboration between the sources, the requesting peers and helper peers. Each source distributes its own video sequence while additionally forwarding video data received from other sources. A single peer is selected to redistribute a particular video block to the peers which would like to receive the videos. Our goal is to maximize the overall throughput or alternatively the aggregate video quality of multiple concurrent streaming sessions. We also consider the special cases of "same throughput" or "same video quality" for all streams. We formulate the rate allocation and redistribution as an optimization problem and evaluate our framework for three different scenarios. In the first scenario, the rate allocation is jointly decided for all participating peers. In the second scenario, the rate allocation is also decided jointly, but additionally either same rate or same video quality streams are enforced. Our third scenario assumes separate distribution for every source. In this case, the peers divide their upload capacity equally among the different video sequences. Our results show the superior performance of joint rate allocation compared to independent allocation and the effectiveness of our framework.