Video Standard Compliant Layered P2P Streaming

Peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming over Internet needs to consider the dynamic bandwidth fluctuations and various client device capabilities. To maximize the network utilization and to achieve stable P2P streaming, we propose a novel multi-layered P2P streaming system in which the scalable video bit-stream is fully decodable by legacy non-scalable video decoder. So, even the client device only has the legacy video decoding capability, e. g. H.264/AVC, once it joins the proposed layered P2P streaming, this client has the ability to decode the scalable video bit-stream fully to render video with high spatial resolution or quality and at the same time achieve stable and robust quality of experience with quick start up, fast channel zapping and reduced player freezing/buffering.