Metadata-based delivery framework for P2PTV

P2PTV refers to television media streams being distributed to large numbers of viewers on the Internet via peer-to-peer overlay networks. In the design of P2PTV systems, there is a fundamental trade-off between the better Quality-of-Service (QoS) desired by the viewers and the lower resource consumption preferred by the P2PTV distributors as well as the internet service providers (ISPs). This trade-off is partially caused by the time-varying and limited capabilities of the overlay connections. Observing the potential duplication of the television media streams, we propose a metadata based delivery framework for P2PTV. In contrast to previous efforts, this framework distributes the original media streams as well as the associated metadata information simultaneously. As a result, the streaming clients at the viewer side are able to identify duplicated content segments in media streams and avoid requesting the duplicated content multiple times. In this way, the P2PTV distributors, ISPs and viewers could reduce their upload bandwidth consumption. Moreover, the distributors within this framework can discriminate various media content according to time constraints such that they could apply different uploading policies to live, pre-recorded and hybrid media content. The streaming clients are even allowed to slightly time-shift local playback schedules such that viewers have an opportunity to experience better P2PTV services.