Reverse Playback in H. 264 Video Streaming System Based on Dual-Stream and SP-Frames

For a video on demand streaming system, the main issue is how to provide full VCR support. Until now, reverse playback, due to its complexity, is hardly seen in streaming systems. In this paper, we present a scheme for H. 264 video reverse playback in a VOD streaming system. We give the encoder and decoder structure for the special SP-frames of H. 264. By combining SP-frames with the forward stream and a pre-coded reverse stream, we make it possible for an actual VOD system to do trick-play using reverse playback efficiently. Also, it is drift-free during stream switching. We then discuss our implementation of this reverse playback scheme in our own VOD system, showing good quality and performance.