Optimal streaming of synchronized multimedia presentations with layered objects

A synchronized multimedia presentation consists of a collection of objects, with each object having one or more rendering intervals within the presentation timeline. These intervals specify the objects' start times and end times relative to formatted text and other objects whose bits are rendered the presentation timeline. In this paper we consider the problem of streaming a multimedia presentation from a server to a client over a bandwidth-limited communication network. We suppose that each of the static objects is layered-encoded. For a given maximum delay, we consider the problem of finding the optimal number of layers in each object in order to maximize a measure of the overall quality of the presentation. We devise efficient algorithms for determining an optimal policy for several natural criteria. We also consider the problem of gradual rendering of objects after their start times. We then apply the algorithms to a randomly generated presentation containing layer-encoded JPEG images.