Design Issues and Challenges

in P2P Media Streaming

# Idowu Samuel O. - samido@student.ltu.se

# Kashif Shahzad M7001E - Multimedia systems [ltu.se]
# Arif Kamal ©2011
Media Streaming
 Media using streaming transmission on the
Internet
◦ Media streaming don’t have to download whole file
before playing.
 Approach
◦ Separates media files into different sections by time
sequence.
◦ Sends these sections to clients.
◦ Client can watch images and hear sounds
continuously by playing these sections
 Forms of Media Streaming
 Live streaming
Video of an ongoing event delivered as a stream
in real-time. After an initial buffer period, client
starts to watch the stream.

 Video on-Demand (VoD) streaming

Client searches a video from some catalogue,
after initial buffer, client starts to play the video
from the beginning. E.g youtube, Vimeo.
YouTube: client-server protocols
 Media Streaming and Models 1/3
 Client/server architecture.
◦ Confines the development of operation of media
streaming because
 Streaming consumes large bandwidth of network and
resources of server.
 Most servers’ capability can’t satisfy this need.

◦ Quick-Fix
 increase the number of server to increase the
bandwidth.
Requires huge cost and expenditure. There is a need
for a better technology.
 Media Streaming and Models 2/3
 IP Multicast.
◦ Solves the problem of using large number of bandwidth
for multiplex transmission of media streaming.
◦ Send data to specific group of clients at the same time
by using multicast; avoids sending data repeatedly.
◦ Saves bandwidth, hence suitable for network media
streaming transmission.

◦ Draw-back
 Internet is a heterogeneous network,
 Different hardware platform; interconnecting equipment
that supports multicast is also different.
 Media Streaming and Models 3/3
 CDN(Content Delivery Network)
◦ Solution for the media streaming network on large
scale.
◦ Adds a new network frame in the Internet so as to
publish contents of Center Server to the Edge Server of
the nearest client.
 Improve the speed of response
 CDN can increase information’s transmitting efficiency
on the Internet.

◦ Draw-back
 Increases the cost and makes the system more
complex. Need too many Edge Servers.
 Peer-to-Peer
 Nodes don’t depend on resources of centralized
Servers in relative with traditional C/S mode
 Each node can communicates with each other

directly
 dedicated servers are no longer
required
Nodes can receive media stream
from other nodes and also send
media stream to other nodes at
the same time
 E.g P2P streaming applications:
Octoshape and SopCast.
P2P Streaming Topologies 1/2

applicable to both live and on-demand streaming

P2P Streaming Topologies 2/2
 Tree-based system
◦ Hierarchical system, in which media packets originate
from a root node, and are forwarded by internal peers
to all the nodes in the tree

 mesh-based system
◦ Organizes peers in a dynamic mesh, where a peer
receives media chunks from multiple nodes.
 P2P Media Streaming Design Issues
 Larger amount of Buffering Storage
 Components of the system (Servers, Trackers,
Loggers and Peers)
 Segmentation-divide a video into multiple pieces
 Replication strategy associated with issues such as
MVC or SVC, Prefetch or not and Which to remove
 Segments Scheduling focuses on dealing with
dispatching and transmitting segments,
Prefetching and content discovery may also be
included in this topic
P2P Media Streaming Design Issues...

 Piece selection strategy considers factors like

sequential, rarest first, achor based, network
coding, worst-seeded-first,
 Peer heterogeneity may be caused either by

different access networks or willingness of

contribution
 Overlay building mainly focus at proper network

topology building algorithms

 Managing of peer dynamicity requires robust and

adaptive algorithms to manage change

P2P Media Streaming Design Issues...

 Best peer selection strategy

 Monitoring of network conditions to

maximize utilization of available resources

and to minimize the packet drop ratios at
certain links
 Incentives for participating peers otherwise

P2P network starts behaving like client-server

architecture and it fails due to increasing
number of client peers
Single Tree Based Peer Management
Multi Tree Streaming
Active Peer List Management
Tree Based VOD Patch Strategy
Buffer Map Exchange Through Pull
Mesh Based VOD BITOS Peer
Structure
Design Issues in P2P media sharing

Appropriate video coding scheme

Managing Peer dynamicitiy

Peer heterogeneity

Monitoring of network conditions
Appropriate video coding scheme

The prone-error nature of multimedia

content makes it highly sensible to the
transmission over networks offering
non-guaranteed transmission.
Managing Peer dynamicitiy

Since the peers (network nodes) are

end-users terminal, their behaviour
remains unpredictable. Due to dynamic
nature of P2P networks, they are free to
join and leave the service at any time
without making any prior notification to
other nodes.
Peer heterogeneity

Heterogeneity may be caused either by

different access networks connecting
the peers, or by difference in the
willingness of the peers to contribute.
Each sender peers can have a different
available bandwidth and that too might
fluctuate after the connection is
established.
Monitoring of network conditions

The network condition during streaming

phase can be changed dramatically due
to the dynamic nature of P2P
architecture. So, along with the
dynamicity management, it is important
to monitor the current network
conditions regularly.
Challenges in P2P
Challenges faced in P2P network


Distribution of copyrighted files

Security Issues

Bandwidth Consumption
Distribution of Copyrighted Files

Several P2P networks sued by music
companies and private organizations

Users are also targeted

Copyright laws limited to few countries
Security Issues

Spread of virus, malware, spyware,
adware, etc

Use of Steganography

Spread of null files

Peers can be assigned reputation values

Pseudo-spoofing & Shilling attacks
Bandwidth Consumption
Bandwidth for existing Internet traffic (2007)
Questions