THE SPLIT-AND-MERGE PROTOCOL FOR INTERACTIVE VIDEO-ON-DEMAND

A true video-on-demand (VoD) system lets users view any video program, at any time, and perform any VCR-like user interactions. To reduce th e per-user video delivery cost, multiple users may be batched and shar e the same video stream. Existing sharing schemes do not allow true Vo D. A new protocol, called Split and Merge (SAM), does allow true VoD. SAM also provides an innovative way to merge these individuals back in to the batching streams when they resume normal play mode.