Design and Implementation of an Interactive True VOD System on ADSL with Scarce Resources at the Set-Top Box

Abstract

The prevalent ADSL service facilitates simultaneous use of telephone and high-speed data communication services. It is one of the best choices in current network technology for local loops. In this paper, we present solutions to design an interactive true video-on-demand (ITVOD) system for ADSL services with scarce resources at the set-top box. In the proposed system, we not only provide interactive functions (including fast-forward and fast-backward schemes for seeking video), but also furnish an innovative playing mechanism of the video-based program menu pages. The proposed mechanisms can save a large amount of system resources required beyond the capability of the original OSD (on-screen-display) device at the set-top box. To achieve a reliable service with scarce resources at the set-top box and variant qualities on ADSL links, we also implement an effective and efficient error control mechanism to tightly couple the packet retransmission and rate control mechanisms. The proposed mechanisms can also be deployed on hand-held devices (such as cellular phone and PDA) to support the multimedia networking services with scarce system resources.