The computation of deterministic bounds to multiplexed MPEG video traffic using z-characterization

In this paper, we propose a method called z-characterization for computing the deterministic bounds of an aggregated MPEG stream at frame level. Traditional deterministic characterization methods like empirical envelope generally suffer from the drawback of high computation complexity. In our approach, the I, P and B sub-traces of an MPEG trace will be characterized independently such that they possess their own empirical envelopes, By exploiting the periodic group-of-pictures (GOP) structure of MPEG video, the I, P and B sub-envelopes can act as building blocks for computing the characterization of the aggregate stream in real-time. Experimental results show that our proposed characterization closely bounds the empirical envelope in both homogenous and heterogeneous multiplexing scenarios.