IPTV Delivery Networks

Chapter 2IPTV Streaming Classification

Miguel Masciopinto, Pedro Comesaña and Fernando Pérez-González

2.1 Introduction

Until the past decade, video distribution was predominantly focused on specific broadcasting channels (satellite, terrestrial, cable) and hardware devices (video-tapes, compact disks (CDs), DVDs). In sharp contrast, video distribution over nontraditional channels has been successful in the past few years. The foremost among those new distribution channels are VoD (Little and Venkatesh, 1994) over IP (Internet Protocol; Information Sciences Institute, 1981) networks and IP multicast systems (Deering, 1989), which have achieved spectacular commercial success, as epitomised by the US-based on-demand streaming media provider Netflix, Inc. (Netflix, 2007). Both VoD and IP multicast systems make rational use of network resources, as they use IP networks for delivering content while they are being consumed (in technical words, content is streamed), instead of requiring the full reception of the content for the client to start playing it. Additionally, as IP networks have been massively deployed during the past decades, the necessary infrastructure is already in place, so these multimedia distribution systems are very cost-effective. Furthermore, because IP networks can also be used for delivering other types of data and different kinds of multimedia content (e.g., audio, images, video and so on), data-independence (in general, multipurpose independence) becomes another ...