A media proxy architecture for an NFS-based VOD service on the intranet

An NFS-based VOD (video on demand) service is preferable in organizations which have an intranet because it is easy to set up a VOD service. However, some problems arise in achieving an NFS-based VOD service on the intranet. Firstly, the performance of NFS degrades seriously when the network delay becomes large because NFS requests data by the `stop and wait´ protocol. Secondly, packet loss affects video quality seriously in an intranet because NFS requests the retransmission of the lost data. To overcome the above problems, the authors propose a media proxy architecture. In this architecture, they set up a media proxy between the clients and the server. The result of a measurement experiment shows that a client can play video data smoothly in spite of the existence of packet losses and a large delay