SAVE: an algorithm for smoothed adaptive video over explicit rate networks

Supporting compressed video efficiently on networks is a challenge because of its burstiness. Although a large number of applications using compressed video are rate adaptive, it is also important to preserve quality as much as possible. We propose a smoothing and rate adaptation algorithm, called SAVE, that the compressed video source uses in conjunction with explicit rate based control in the network. SAVE smoothes the demand from the source to the network, thus helping achieve good multiplexing gains. SAVE maintains the quality of the video and ensures that the delay at the source buffer does not exceed a bound. We examine the effectiveness of SAVE across 28 different traces (entertainment and teleconferencing videos) using different compression algorithms