A practical system for MPEG-2-based video-on-demand over ATM packet networks and the WWW

A video-on-demand system, dubbed NetMovie, based on MPEG-2 encoded video transmission over ATM networks has been designed and built. It uses a real-time MPEG-2 decoder board on a client personal computer to display compressed video delivered from a remote server over an FDDI/ATM network. Audio play-back is provided using off-the-shelf, digital audio boards. Video compression is done off-line using software encoders. Several transport layer techniques, including dual priority transmission and slice-based packetization, have been developed for error resilient, real-time transmission and audio-video synchronization. The system is integrated with the World Wide Web to provide real-time, high-quality video delivery to end points with high bandwidth connections to the Internet. It demonstrates feasibility of an economical, MPEG-2 video-on-demand system based on readily available hardware and software. NetMovie has been successfully used to demonstrate an MPEG-2 based, international video-on-demand application between NJ, USA and Kyoto, Japan during the 1994 plenipotentiary meeting of the ITU.