This project studies various schemes that provide affordable and interactive Video-on-Demand (VOD) services for popular videos. These videos include ``hot'' news coverage, popular sport events, tapped lectures, or recently released movies. The first goal of the study is to understand the tradeoff among various resources such as server I/O bandwidth, client buffer size, and client I/O bandwidth. All these tradeoff issues are important in designing a video server since, in future multimedia applications, service providers might subsidize the cost of the set-top box at a user's side if it is cost effective. The second goal of the study is to provide interactive services to users. The interactive services, which include VCR like functions such as pause, resume, rewind and forward, make any content available under the touch of a fingertip. The study includes resource allocation schemes for providing timely interactive services. For a full description of the project, please refer to the web page Providing interactive VOD services for popular videos. As a new researcher in the area of multimedia networks, the PI will focus on the first goal and set a stage for the second goal during the planning period. The PI plans to submit a full proposal by the end of the planning period.
