本論文實做了一套應用於家庭網路中的多媒體影音串流及搜尋系統。系統包含了兩個元件，分別是實做在嵌入式系統上的多媒體影音播放器以及實做在個人電腦上的多媒體伺服器。為了能夠降低使用者對於在裝置設定上的負擔以及得到喜好程度最高的影片，本論文同時採用了UPnP家庭網路標準以及MPEG-7技術。接著，我們以此多媒體影音串流及搜尋系統為基礎，提出了一套應用於家庭網路中具有廣域公平性的頻寬配置機制。首先，系統將依據頻寬分配權重(Ф)配置頻寬給網路中的搜尋實體(也就是使用者欲下載播放的影片)。接著，搜尋實體所在的伺服器即可選擇相對應品質(高、中與低)的影片來提供播放下載服務。其中，Ф值的大小取決於使用者對於影片檔的喜好程度以及伺服器本身的硬體能力。
當搜尋實體的頻寬分配超出所在伺服器的負荷或是高於提供最高品質影片所需的頻寬時，稱之為頻寬超分配。為了將超分配的頻寬分享給在網路中其它的搜尋實體，本論文提出了兩種具公平性的頻寬分享策略。當頻寬分享僅存在於由同一個多媒體播放器所產生的搜尋實體時，稱之為相鄰公平; 當頻寬是分享給在網路中所有的搜尋實體時，稱之為廣域公平。雖然廣域公平的頻寬分享能達到搜尋實體之間頻寬分配的完全公平，但是由於容易產生超分配的搜尋實體，因此雖然具有高度的頻寬利用度，但是卻無法有效提升產量。因此，本論文提出了兩種頻寬分配改進方法，分別為(軟/硬)柵門式服務與重配置。柵門式服務制訂一個頻寬配置的上限，依據頻寬配置之公平性的不同，可分為軟柵門式服務與硬柵門式服務。另一方面，當搜尋實體的頻寬分配低於提供低品質影片所需的頻寬時，就稱為頻寬低分配。重配置是集合所有低分配搜尋實體之頻寬，藉由捨棄具最小Ф值的低分配搜尋實體並重新配置頻寬給所有低分配的搜尋實體，直到低分配搜尋實體之總頻寬低於提供低品質影片播放所需的最小頻寬為止。藉由本論文所提出的以頻寬為基礎之多品質串流機制，在以UPnP為主的家庭網路中能夠同時達成頻寬之高利用度以及產量的最大化。

This paper implements a multimedia streaming and searching system in home networks. The system includes both embedded media player and media server. To minimize the installation process and obtain the most user preferable content among home network devices, UPnP and MPEG-7 are applied. Based on this system, this paper also presents a cousin-fair bandwidth allocation strategy for home networks that focus on the application of multimedia streaming, especially for movies. Bandwidth allocation for search entities (i.e., movies) is base on a bandwidth allocation weight (Ф), and then the contained server can choose a corresponding quality of movies (i.e., high, medium and low) for streaming service. The bandwidth allocation weight (Ф) is determined by both user preference and server hardware capability.
As the bandwidth allocation of a search entity is either over the server loading or exceeding the bandwidth needed for high quality movie, it is called bandwidth over-allocation. To share the over-allocated bandwidth among search entities, two sharing strategies are presented. One is called sibling-fair, i.e., as the bandwidth sharing can only be performed among the search entities from the same requestor (i.e., media player). The other one is called cousin-fair which is a bandwidth sharing strategy that shares the redundant bandwidth of some search entity to other search entities from all the requestors. Although the bandwidth allocation with cousin-fair can achieve both complete fairness among search entities and high bandwidth utilization, the throughput is unable to maximize. Therefore, bandwidth allocation of a search entity is needed to escape from over-allocating. Two improved methods, e.g., (soft/hard) gated-service and re-provision, have been employed to take advantage of the over-allocation bandwidth. Gated-service defines an upper bound of the bandwidth allocation and can be categorized into soft gated-service and hard gated-service according to the fairness degree of bandwidth allocation. As the bandwidth allocation of a search entity is lower than the bandwidth needed for low quality movie, it is called bandwidth under-allocation. Re-provision is a method that re-allocates the gathered bandwidth of under-allocated search entities by erasing the SE with lowest Φ until the gathered bandwidth is insufficient for the low quality movie. By using the proposed bandwidth-based multi-quality streaming mechanism, both high bandwidth utilization and throughput maximization are achieved in the UPnP-based home networks.

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