Providing VCR functionality in staggered video broadcasting

A true video-on-demand (TVoD) system allows users to view any video program, at any time, and perform any VCR function, but its per-user video delivery cost is very expensive. A near video-on-demand (NVoD) system uses a more scalable approach by batching multiple clients to a shared stream of broadcasting videos. Staggered video broadcasting, one of the NVoD techniques, broadcasts multiple streams of the same video at staggered times, with one stream serving multiple clients. In order to provide subscribers with a high-quality VoD service, it is desirable to add VCR functionality, such as fast forward and fast rewind, but it is not easy to provide VCR functionality in NVoD, especially a video broadcasting system where no dedicated or interactive channel is available. We analyze the conditions necessary to provide VCR functions and then propose a reception schedule that satisfies these conditions, with minimal resource requirements. Since our proposed scheme receives video frames as units, it can rapidly sustain a changing VCR action pattern. It is demonstrated, by simulation, that the scheme provides VCR functionality consistently with minimal buffer space.