Distributing video content using a router-assisted multicast mechanism

At this time, high quality on-demand video streaming services are expected to be one of the most promising applications of content distribution networks because of the wide-area deployment of broadband network and the advanced improvement of the video compression technologies. This paper proposes a simple mechanism called active video delivery (AVD) that provides an efficient group communication service for on-demand video systems. We describe how to construct an AVD tree where a multicast-like delivery service is effectively achieved. In our simulation results, we demonstrated our proposed AVD mechanism allows for significant reductions both in the average and maximum link load (link stress). In addition, we have evaluated the AVD performance according to varied percentages of routers that are ARs deployed in the simulation network.