Optimizing random network coding for multimedia content distribution over smartphones

Abstract

It is known that random network coding (RNC) technology helps enhance multimedia content distribution systems in various ways; however, the enhancement can vary widely depending on how the technology is realized in the systems. RNC technology entails an encoding process at the server-side and a decoding process at the clients. Typically, the decoding process is the bottleneck especially when resource-limited mobile clients such as smartphones are employed. Thus, to fully exploit the benefit of RNC technology, it is crucial to maximize throughput and minimize latency of the decoding process of RNC at the client-side. In this paper, we explore the implementation space of RNC on smartphone platforms and propose best practices that optimize RNC performance on smartphone in terms of decoding throughput (or delay) as well as energy consumption. Via experimental results, we show that our proposal for optimizing RNC achieves throughput enhancement along with energy conservation at the same time on smartphones.