A program-driven approach joint with pre-buffering and popularity to reduce latency during channel surfing periods in IPTV networks

Internet protocol television (IPTV), which is quickly growing in popularity, can provide hundreds of channels; however, finding a desired IPTV channel among hundreds of channels is a difficult and time consuming issue. Since the very big number of channels, and the delay in switching between them due to network bandwidth limitations, can make it difficult for viewers to find the content they want. To solve this problem, we propose a novel method to reduce channel surfing period that is called Pre-Buffering join with Program Driven (PBPD) method. It is noted that the number of channel switches has a main effect on the channel surfing period. Our proposed method is based on programs; it means that instead of choosing channels, users select their desired programs by which they can reach the channels playing the programs. In addition we send all channels playing the selected program type plus one channel (most popular) from each group of channels playing other types of program in time slots to the STB(set-top box) including minimum one I-frame and finally we use popularity to select the channel in the STB. Simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the number of channel switches, waiting time for the delivery of the earliest key-frame after selecting a channel and average time to join a broadcasting group; therefore, the proposed method has a good performance in comparison to other methods.