Multiplexing video traffic using frame-skipping aggregation technique

MPEG is a popular compression standard used in many multimedia applications. In video distribution systems, a CBR communications channel is often shared among several VBR MPEG video streams. Since there are fluctuations of data rates in video streams, traffic congestion may occur and video quality may be affected. We propose a frame-skipping aggregation technique to multiplex several MPEG streams (outside the network) to feed into a CBR channel (within the network). The salient feature of the scheme is that the transmission of bi-directionally predicted frames will be slipped (outside the network) before the onset of traffic congestion so as to minimize the image quality degradation. Our result shows that using this technique, more users can be supported compared to regular video transmission systems. This technique allows us to adopt a simple call admission strategy in which video requests are granted based on their mean rates