Archies: an end-to-end architecture for adaptive live MPEG-4 video streaming over wireless networks

Abstract

The main contribution of this paper is the design and implementation of Archies, a generic and open end-to-end architecture for adaptive streaming of live MPEG-4 video over last hop wireless networks. The distinguishing features of our architecture include support for end-to-end source rate adaptation, feedback control from the client and end-to-end packet loss differentiation. We also present a prototype implementation of Archies and evaluate its performance over a real network testbed. Archies serve as a generic and open end-to-end video streaming architecture and experimental real network testbed that provides an excellent platform to the research community to develop, evaluate and compare various algorithms for adaptive video streaming over wireless networks. The components of the architecture are designed to be lightweight and modular that could be easily extended and evolved in the future with better algorithms for video compression and source rate adaptation.