While the demand for video streaming services has risen rapidly in recent years, supporting video streaming service to a large number of receivers still remains a challenging task. Issues of video streaming in the Internet, such as scalability, and reliability are still under extensive research. Recently proposed network contexts such as overlay networks, and mobile ad hoc networks pose even tougher challenges. This thesis focuses on supporting scalable video streaming applications under various network environments. More specifically, this thesis investigates the following problems: i) Server selection in replicated batching video on demand (VoD) systems: we find out that, to optimize the user perceived latency, it is vital to consider the server state information and channel allocation schemes when making server selection decisions. We develop and evaluate a set of server selection algorithms that use increasingly more information. ii) Scalable live video streaming with time shifting and video patching: we consider the problem of how to enable continuous live video streaming to a large group of clients in cooperative but unreliable overlay networks. We design a server-based architecture which uses a combined technique of time-shifting video server and P2P video patching. iii) A Cooperative patching architecture in overlay networks: We design a cooperative patching architecture which shifts video patching responsibility completely to the client side. An end-host retrieves lost data from other end-hosts within the same multicast group. iv) V3: a vehicle to vehicle video streaming architecture: We propose V3, an architecture to provide live video streaming service to driving vehicles through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) networks. V3 incorporates a novel signaling mechanism to continuously trigger video sources to send video data back to the receiver. It also adopts a store-carry-and-forward approach to transmit video data in a partitioned network environment. We also develop a multicasting framework that enables live video streaming applications from multiple sources to multiple receivers in V2V networks. A message integration scheme is used to suppress the signaling overhead, and a two-level tree-based routing approach is adopted to forward the video data.

"This book spans a number of interdependent and emerging topics in streaming media, offering a comprehensive collection of topics including media coding, wireless/mobile video, P2P media streaming, and applications of streaming media"--Provided by publisher.

When researchers gather around lunch tables, at conferences, or in bars, there are some topics that are more or less compulsory. The discussions are about the ho- less management of the university or the lab where they are working, the lack of funding for important research, politicians’ inability to grasp the potential of a p- ticularly promising ?eld, and the endless series of committees that seem to produce very little progress. It is common to meet excellent researchers claiming that they have almost no time to do research because writing applications, lecturing, and - tending to committee work seem to take most of their time. Very few ever come into a position to do something about it. With Simula we have this chance. We were handed a considerable annual grant and more or less left to ourselves to do whatever we thought would produce the best possible results. We wanted to create a place where researchers could have the time and conditions necessary to re?ect over dif?cult problems, uninterrupted by mundane dif?culties; where doctoral students could be properly supervised and learn the craft of research in a well-organized and professional manner; and where entrepreneurs could ?nd professional support in developing their research-based - plications and innovations.

The area of video streaming has seen tremendous growth in recent years due to the enhanced processing power, better compression algorithms, and increased bandwidths in emerging networks. Most of the latest communication standards are IP based, whereas the Internet provides only a best-effort service model and the priority-based service models are only gradually being realized for real-time data. Current research attempts to overcome the effects of video packet losses and delays to provide a better user experience. Multimedia communication over wireless channels is especially difficult due to the fact that the channel conditions are generally poor, in addition to the rapid changes that can occur in the channel. Fountain codes can address some of the challenges in this research area, and can also be combined in innovative ways with the different importance classes of compressed video data. Considering the importance of the issues highlighted above, this book focuses on designing error correction techniques to exploit different importance classes in compressed video data for designing adaptive solutions to support multimedia traffic over wireless channels. This book represents a useful reference point for researchers, academics, research students, and industry developers interested in utilizing error correction codes for ensuring better video quality.

Most books on network planning and optimization provide limited coverage of either GSM or WCDMA techniques. Few scrape the surface of HSPA, and even fewer deal with TD-SCDMA. Filling this void, Evolved Cellular Network Planning and Optimization for UMTS and LTE presents an accessible introduction to all stages of planning and optimizing UMTS, HSPA,

Emerging Trends from European Research. BThe way the book is structured and enhanced makes it an ideal reference book for managers, academics, researchers and system designers in the communications field./B BRBRI- Harry Skianis, Computing Reviews about the 2009 edition of Towards