MPEG-4 FGS Video Traffic Model and Its Application in Simulations for Layered Video Multicast

CBR traffic models are commonly used in simulations to evaluate the performance of the adaptive video multicast protocols. However, more accurate traffic models, such as MPEG-4 FGS models, are necessary to simulate actual video traffic in performance evaluation of adaptive video multicast protocols. We first introduce Markov chain modulated first order autoregressive process to model the statistical properties of FGS layered video traffic, and then implement a layered rate control method based on the proposed FGS traffic model in NS-2. We then design three simulation experiments on RLM, each one adopting the proposed rate control method based on FGS model and one of three typical CBR layered traffic models respectively. The experiments reveal that the result of our scheme differs greatly from those of CBR schemes. Since our FGS model is more accurate than the CBR models, we suggest that layered rate control method based on FGS traffic model is more desirable in the simulations of adaptive video multicast protocols to get more fair and accurate evaluation results.