Lightweight Streaming Protocol (LSP)

A new streaming protocol is proposed for multimedia applications. The proposed protocol, referred to as Lightweight Streaming Protocol (LSP), is an application layer protocol that sits atop UDP. The protocol is intended to improve the quality and reliability of media stream by borrowing features from reliable protocols such as retransmission and flow control while not sacrificing performance. The protocol offers semi-reliable transport. Instead of trying to guarantee 100% data delivery the protocol simply recovers as many packets as possible within a specified deadline. In addition the protocol incorporates features such as probabilistic redundant NAK transmission and flow control through selective frame dropping. Preliminary simulations show that LSP performs extremely well in channels with random packet loss such as congested networks. The protocol also performs reasonably well in channels that have short bursts of lost packets such as wireless networks.