Quality tradeoffs for packet video over differentiated services networks

Differentiated services networks can only function effectively if an appropriate mix of traffic can be maintained in all service classes using a practical pricing model. Previous work has noted that the same video sequence being distributed to clients who are prepared to pay different amounts for the service results in traffic distributions that vary considerably between those clients. It is shown that this variation can be reduced by trading off coding distortion and the amount of protection given to packets. As a result, a simple pricing model provides stable traffic distributions over a wide range of network conditions and client budgets.