In this paper, a minimum cost scheduling algorithm is proposed for high-quality video streaming in dynamic bandwidth allocation networks. It targets the problem of service cost minimization in optimal smoothing algorithms. Based on the bandwidth usage and the number of bandwidth renegotiations, service cost functions are defined for each transmission segment and a group of segments. The relative cost flags are also defined for each segment, which indicate the direction in which the segment is merged with less service cost. By inspecting the relative cost flags on the boundaries of segments, it is determined whether neighboring segments should be merged, until there is no reduction in the overall service cost. From the simulation results, the proposed algorithm is shown to merge neighboring segments in the direction minimizing the service cost. Compared with the optimal smoothing algorithm, the overall service cost is greatly reduced with a similar level of network resource usage and less transmission rate variability, especially for larger renegotiation cost parameters.
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