Video streaming over the public Internet: Multiple description codes and adaptive transport protocols

The problem of video transmission over IP networks is considered in this paper: we present the design of a complete system for the transmission of high-quality video signals over the public Internet. Our system involves (1) modifications to the standard Internet transport protocol (TCP), to make it suitable for the transport of delay-constrained traffic, and to gather channel state information; (2) the design of an error-resilient video coder; and (3) the design of a controller which uses channel state information provided by the modified protocol, to configure the error-resilient coder accordingly. Experimental studies performed on certain high-speed segments of the public Internet reveal that the proposed system is able to deliver video signals at bit rates in the range of 4-9 Mbits/sec, not only within fast LANs but also, and more surprisingly, even between sites in the US and Europe. That is, over existing public IP channels, our proposed system can deliver video at TV-broadcast quality.