VIDEO-ON-DEMAND OVER ATM - CONSTANT-RATE TRANSMISSION AND TRANSPORT

We introduce a specific transport and transmission scheme for video-on demand (VoD) called constant-rate transmission and transport (CRTT), CRTT establishes a constant bit-rate (CBR) virtual channel between the video provider and the viewer's set-top box (STB) and then transmits cells from the provider into this channel at a constant rate, Since we assume that the number of cells in a frame is variable, CRTT requires that some number of cells be built up in an STB buffer before the com mencement of playback, The build up, cell transmission rate, and the s et-top memory size must be chosen so that there is no starvation or ov erflow at the STB, We develop fundamental relationships between these parameters for viable CRTT, We then apply the theory to an MPEG encodi ng of Star Wars and find that the minimal STB memory for CRTT is 23 Mb ytes, We also consider varying the constant rate over a small number o f intervals, We find, for example, that for Star Wars approximately 2 Mbytes of set-top memory suffices with 32 constant-rate intervals.