Rate-distortion optimized streaming from the edge of the network

This paper addresses the problem of streaming packetized media over a lossy packet network through an intermediate proxy server to a client, in a rate-distortion optimized way. The proxy, located at the junction of the backbone network and the last hop to the client, coordinates the communication between the media server and the client using hybrid receiver/sender-driven streaming in a rate-distortion optimization framework. The framework enables the proxy to determine at every instant which packets, if any, it should either request from the media server or (re)transmit directly to the client, in order to meet constraints on the average transmission rates on the backbone and the last hop while minimizing the average end-to-end distortion. Performance gains are observed over rate-distortion optimized sender-driven systems for streaming packetized video content. The improvement in performance depends on the quality of the network path both in the backbone network and along the last hop.