Scalable media stream to heterogenous users

Many multicast video streaming algorithms have been proposed to provide scalable streaming media services, but they are designed for homogeneous clients, i.e., users are assumed to have the same receiving bandwidth. The performance of these state-of-the-art algorithms will degrade significantly in user heterogeneous environment. A scheme, called the enhanced patching, is proposed to support user heterogeneity. Both the optimal threshold window and the average bandwidth are analyzed. A simple but efficient analytical model is also proposed to evaluate the distribution of the capacity demanded by the clients. The numerical results show the feasibility of the proposed scheme.