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Comparison of Multicast Versus Peer to Peer Multimedia Streaming
Posted By saint on May 09 2009 12:00 AM
Streaming
video or audio content to a large audience on the Internet requires
substantial amounts of network resources. The most common method for
content transmission on the Internet uses the central server / client
architecture, which is very inefficient and resource intensive.
Internet Broadcasting requires the use of efficient transmission
methods to provide a cost effective means for content distribution.
There
have been hardware and software technologies developed, which can be
used to obtain more efficient content transmission methods. Multicast
was a significant step in achieving the goal of delivering video and
audio content to large audiences without requiring substantial amounts
of bandwidth. Peer-to-Peer content streaming was built upon the success
of Multicast content distribution technology.
Multicast
was created as a hardware based solution to distribute data without the
need for centralized servers, which is ideal for video and audio
streaming. It uses special reserved network addresses for data
distribution and routing. A Multicast network consists of specially
configured routers that act as data relay points. Broadcasters must
connect to these specially configured routers to distribute their
content. Users connected to these routers can select which data channel
or multimedia stream to receive. The Real Time Transport Protocol is
used to minimize errors for audio or video Internet broadcasts.
Each
stream is identified using a special announcement protocol known as the
Session Directory Protocol (SDP). This identification mechanism
describes the content of the audio or video Internet broadcasts that
use embedded information tags. Clients scan the information tags
contained in the streams and select which one they want to receive.
Each
audio or video stream requires a reserved portion of the dedicated
Multicast network bandwidth. Individual broadcasts cannot exceed the
overall reserved network bandwidth without degrading all of the
broadcasts. To enable this type of content transmission on a global
scale, every Internet service provider would need to enable external
Multicast networking and coordinate interconnectivity. End users would
have to enable this specialized networking on their computers and on
their Local Area Networks to receive the audio or video broadcasts.
Peer-to-Peer
multimedia streaming requires the installation of special software on
each computer that wants to receive the audio or video streams. Each
connected computer acts as a data relay which eliminates the need for
special network router configurations, that are required for Multicast
content streaming. A single virtual network is created for each audio
or video broadcast, which reduces the overall bandwidth needed for
content distribution. This type of Internet broadcasting allows
computers to receive data from multiple sources, which lowers data
error and latency within the virtual network. These Internet broadcasts
are identified and sorted by embedded information tags. Clients can
scan these embedded information tags and choose which stream they want
to receive.
There
are various open and closed source Peer-to-Peer software applications
that can be used to stream both audio and video content. These software
applications can be used to broadcast content encoded in various
formats and multimedia codecs.
It
is important to implement and use an efficient network transmission
method for content delivery on the Internet. Streaming audio and video
content to large audiences on the Internet requires substantial amounts
of network resources. Both of these methods for video or audio
multimedia streaming dramatically lower the need for large amounts of
bandwidth. Multicast streaming is ideal for self contained networks,
but is difficult to enable on a global scale. Peer-to-Peer content
distribution requires less technical configuration for the broadcasting
of video or audio content and can easily be used by anyone.
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