Video Segment Prefetching for IPFS Video Streaming with Scalable Video Coding

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) is an adaptive video streaming method over HTTP that achieves high-quality video playback in unstable network environments. SVC-DASH is a method that uses Scalable Video Coding (SVC) as the encoding method for video segments on DASH, which effectively prevents playback stalling due to delays in downloading video segments and improves cache efficiency in P2P video streaming. InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) video streaming is a method of distributing video using an IPFS/HTTP gateway. Video segments are shared between multiple gateways using the IPFS network, and video segments are sent to DASH clients using HTTP to achieve video distribution. This enables video streaming with guaranteed tamper resistance and censorship resistance for video content within IPFS networks. However, SVC uses many files (layers) to represent high-quality video, and this can cause a bottleneck in content exchange in IPFS networks. In this paper, we propose a prefetching method for IPFS video streaming with scalable video coding. In the proposed method, the IPFS/HTTP gateway prefetches the next enhancement layer up to the quality of the previously requested video segments. This reduces the download time of video segments for the client, and improves the quality of the video segments. In the evaluation, we evaluate the video playback bitrate on the Docker network, and show that the playback bitrate of the proposed method is improved compared to the conventional method. We also evaluate the prefetching performance of the proposed method using the hit rate and utilization rate, and show that the proposed method can prefetch video segments while reducing unnecessary traffic in the IPFS network.