Data placement and prefetching with accurate bit rate control for interactive media server

Abstract

An interactive Media Server should support unrestricted control to viewers with their service level agreements. It is important to manage video data effectively to facilitate efficient retrieval. In this paper, we propose an efficient placement algorithm as part of an effective retrieval scheme to increase the number of clients who can be provided with interactive service. The proposed management schemes are incorporated with a bit count control method that is based on repeated tuning of quantization parameters to adjust the actual bit count to the target bit count. The encoder using this method can generate coded frames whose sizes are synchronized with the RAID stripe size, so that when various fast-forward levels are accessed we can reduce the seek and rotational latency and enhance the disk throughput of each disk in the RAID system. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed schemes can significantly improve the average service time and guarantee more users service of quality, and the interactive media server can thereby efficiently service a large number of clients.