Vanets: Case Study of a Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing System

TLDR: Vanets is presented, a P2P based video conferencing system that takes advantage of transcoding to optimally allocate streaming rates for all participating peers and distinguishes between active and passive participants and enhances the video quality of the active participant.

Abstract: Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a powerful platform for a variety of multimedia streaming applications over the Internet such as video-on-demand, video conferencing, live broadcasting, etc. A P2P system is extremely cost-effective since it utilizes the resources (CPU cycles, storage space, and uplink bandwidth) of peer machines. Recently, there has been significant development in desiging video conferencing systems. Video conferencing requires substantial network bandwidth in order to be able to transport high volume video data. This is particularly true for multiparty (MP) video conferencing system. One way to address the demand of high bandwidth is to use a network-based device called Multipoint Control Units (MCU). However, MCUs’ high cost and maintenance complexities make it only feasible for large business enterprises. Alternatively, the low cost P2P video conferencing services allow participants to establish pair-wise video communication. However, using this technology in a MP video conferencing system greatly reduces the video quality experienced by the user. The decentralized and shared bandwidth nature of a P2P network, therefore, makes it an effective choice for implementing video conferencing applications. In this work we present Vanets, a P2P based video conferencing system that takes advantage of transcoding to optimally allocate streaming rates for all participating peers. Our solution distinguishes between active and passive participants and enhances the video quality of the active participant. The remainder of this proposal is organized as follows. In Sec. II, we present an overview of the Vanets interface, network model, tree construction algorithm, and video adaptation procedure. In Sec. III we present our demonstration plan.