Adaptive timeline aware client controlled HTTP streaming
Sachin Gangadhar Deshpande · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2009
We propose an adaptive timeline aware client controlled HTTP streaming method to improve performance in a situation where the client has buffer constraints and is connected to the network with a constrained bandwidth link. The proposed approach uses the HTTP/1.1 byte ranges feature or URL parameters to achieve a better HTTP streaming performance. The proposed method does not require any change to the HTTP server side. It can support pausing the HTTP stream without any network data transfer occurring during the paused state. It does not rely on the TCP flow control and so it can work with any TCP/IP stack. The proposed approach allows client to intelligently employ single or multiple concurrent HTTP connections to receive streaming media. The client adaptively switches between using single and multiple concurrent HTTP connections based on the streaming media reception status with respect to wall-clock timeline and the media playout timeline.