| Sommario: | One of the key problems for delivering interactive video applications over IP networks is to keep the end-to-end delay below a pre-defined and application dependent threshold along the application lifetime. Since IP networks only provide a best-effort service, the overall end-to-end delay may go above the threshold, and hence may compromise the QoS perceived by the users. A start-up delay solution, effective for non-interactive QoS applications, cannot be used for interactive applications, as it compromises the achieved QoS by introducing an additional delay to the overall end-to-end delay. In this paper we propose a new approach, which adapts the video play out to the network conditions, in order to support these applications. Instead of using a start-up delay, our mechanism keeps the end-to-end delay within the acceptable threshold, by modifying the video QoS. A QoS evaluation is done to investigate the effects of the QoS modification introduced by our technique. The mechanism evaluation shows that our approach is effective, as the QoS is slightly affected and the end-to-end delay is kept within the threshold along the application lifetime. |
