The use of multicast delivery to provide a scalable and interactive video-on-demand service

In typical proposals for video-on-demand (VoD) systems, customers are serviced individually by allocating and dedicating a transmission channel and a set of server resources to each customer. This approach leads to an expensive to operate, nonscalable system. We consider a VoD system that uses multicast delivery to service multiple customers with a single set of resources. The use of multicast communication requires that part of the on-demand nature of the system be sacrificed to achieve scalability and cost-effectiveness. One drawback to using multicast communication is that it complicates the provision or interactive VCR-style functions. Interactivity can be provided by either increasing the complexity of the customer set-top box (STB) or by modifying the semantics of the interactive functions to make them easier to provide. We describe a framework and mechanisms by which such interactive functions can be incorporated into a multicast delivery VoD system. Through the use of simulation, we evaluate and compare the performance of a unicast VoD system and multicast VoD systems offering various levels of interactivity.