Hybrid peer-to-peer (P2P) approaches combine the cost advantages of P2P solutions with the quality and capacity characteristics of hosted content server solutions. Thousands of users have home devices providing many streaming and storage resources that promise superior scalability and adaptability over server-based content distribution networks. On the other hand, the involvement of these peers is encumbered by additional latency and resource management overhead. In this paper, we describe how the capacity advantage of hybrid P2P solutions over pure P2P solutions translates into higher achievable bit rates. The modeling and analysis of a heterogeneous architecture presented provides insight into the achievable system latency and design directions for topology resource management. The results indicate the potential of hybrid P2P approaches to serve as a cost-effective streaming platform with bit rates and latency quality close to those of other digital video distribution systems such as digital video broadcast-satellite (DVB-S) or Internet Protocol television (IPTV), but with better deployment flexibility for the future digital media "prosumer" models.
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