Hybrid unicast and multicast video streaming using H.264 SVC and FLUTE for set-top box users

The digital set-top box (STB) has evolved to provide not only broadcast channel videos to TV watchers but also streaming videos to mobile device users. The users connected to a STB may request the same video content with disparate bitrate requirements. In this case, applying the conventional multicast or unicast technique causes a waste of transmission bandwidth. To resolve this problem, in this study we realized a novel hybrid multicast and unicast video streaming system. The unicast service was based on MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over Hypertext Transfer Protocol). For multirate streamed users, we incorporated the H.264 SVC (Scalable Video Coding) for bitrate adaptation into the multicast groups under the FLUTE (File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport) protocol. Furthermore, we optimized the system performance that intelligently determined the transmitted video segment and quality level according to the bandwidth efficiency and the marginal quality benefit to users. Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithm effectively reduced the waiting time and enhanced the received video quality of mobile device users.