Cooperation Between LDM-Based Terrestrial Broadcast and Broadband Unicast: On Scalable Video Streaming Applications

Abstract

This article investigates the reliability gain of broadcast (BC)/broadband (BB) cooperation for mobile scalable video streaming. A specific form of BC-BB cooperation is introduced, which is referred to as cooperative casting. The proposed system primarily utilizes a BC transmission for streaming, while BB backup transmissions are requested whenever the BC signal is not decodable. For BC deliveries in this system, a cross-layer collaboration between scalable video coding (SVC) and layered-division multiplexing is used to improve spectral efficiency by coupling their hierarchical structures. In this end, in tandem with designing the uplink requesting rules based on channel status, delivery performance of the cooperative casting is analytically evaluated in a probabilistic framework. The system design and analyses presented in this article focus on the service continuity in a mobile and time-varying channel, where the physical aspects, such as delayed unicast response and inter-carrier interference, are carefully taken into account. Compared to the standalone network transmissions, the cooperative casting is numerically verified to better prevent the delivery failures in high-speed mobile channels, especially when the SVC layer-combined (full-scale video) service is intended. Furthermore, it is also shown that relaxing the criteria for the BB stream requesting can reduce delivery failures substantially, while it increases transmission redundancy.