Comparing network designs for the provision of distributed home theatre services

Video services is both a major business driver and a bandwidth consumer for the future broadband integrated network. An understanding different video services requirements is of paramount importance for network design. We study the distributed home theatre (DHT), a video service which allows distributed users to debate a film. We compare different network designs for the provision of DHT services, and study the interplay between bandwidth reduction and program replication. We evaluate the impact of user distribution, and number of users per session on this interplay. Moreover, we analyze networks with both DHT and video on demand services