On the optimization of bittorrent-like protocols for interactive on-demand streaming systems

Abstract

This paper proposes two novel optimized BitTorrent-like protocols for interactive multimedia streaming: the Simple Interactive Streaming Protocol (SISP) and the Exclusive Interactive Streaming Protocol (EISP). The former chiefly seeks a trade-off between playback continuity and data diversity, while the latter is mostly focused on playback continuity. To assure a thorough and up-to-date approach, related work is carefully examined and important open issues, concerning the design of BitTorrent-like algorithms, are analyzed as well. Through simulations, in a variety of near-real file replication scenarios, the novel protocols are evaluated using distinct performance metrics. Among the major findings, the final results show that the two novel proposals are efficient and, besides, focusing on playback continuity ends up being the best design concept to achieve high quality of service. Lastly, avenues for further research are included at the end of this paper as well.