Abstract—Video on demand (VOD) System over mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) is a system that provides video services to mobile clients. The main problem in these systems is the high service delay where the mobile clients have to wait to watch their favorite movie. The importance of this study is to find a solution on how to reduce the delay time in the system. This paper proposed a novel caching scheme called neighborhood-initial playback based caching scheme (NIPBCS) to overcome the service delay by sending the 1st segment of a movie to the new client by a local forwarder (LF). The LFs will send the 1st segment of the movie selected to the client’s First buffer when the new client’s arrival is detected. When the client wants to watch another movie, the client can tune in to the broadcasting channel that will broadcast the 1st segment of the movie or the client can request from the neighbors or otherwise if the movie the client wants to watch is the same as the 1st segment sent by the Local Forwarder, the client can just switch to the First Buffer and start watching the movie. The aim of this caching scheme is to reduce the time delay in VOD system over MANET. The result obtained proves that NIPBCS reduces the time delay of the system when the number of clients increases and the client failure probability is reduced when the number of clients increases. Index Terms—Video on demand, MANET, NIPBCS, staggered broadcast I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, Video on Demand service has become more popular and many VOD service applications are emerging. In recent years, Video-On-Demand service has become more and more popular and many VOD service applications are emerging. Peoples nowadays do not prefer to waste their time but wants to occupy the time by doing something useful like watching their favorite movie when they have spare time. For instance, while waiting turn to finish their task in post office, airport, immigration office, school campus and restaurants, etc. Most of them wished to watch their favorite video using their mobile devices such as hand phones, laptops and PDAs. With the development in wireless technology such as IEEE 802.11, their wish now can become true. The production of 3G and 4G smart phones such as iPhone, Manuscript received April 12, 2021; revised June 30, 2012. This project is part of a larger research project in the MCRG and this work was supported by Universiti RU grant (1001 / PKOMP/ 817066) from the Universiti Sains Malaysia. The authors are with the Multimedia Computing Research Group, School of Computer Science, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Penang, Malaysia (e-mail: salehalomari2005@yahoo.com, vaiwoods@yahoo.com, putras@cs.usm.my). HTC EVO 4G and PDAs are increasing every year and the price of the devices are also affordable. The main reason to this increment in production is because of the new high technology applications introduced in it especially the application that enables the users to download and watch movie in their phone. Now all the smart phone mobile users can join the Video on Demand System over MANET network and stream or download their favorite movie at anytime and at anywhere. In Video on Demand System over MANET network, the mobile phone clients can download videos to their mobiles from a video server that is builds in a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) environment [1]. In the MANET environment, it has a collection of two or more devices with wireless communications and can communicate with each other without the aid of centralized administrator [2] and the mobile clients does not have a fixed topology, thus it can enter and leave the network easily [3]. This paper proposes a novel caching scheme called Neighborhood-Initial Playback Based Caching Scheme (NIPBCS) for video on demand system over MANET to reduce the time delay. This paper organized as follows: section II related backgrounds and section III described the proposed work. II. RELATED BACKGROUND This section discusses about the Video on Demand system over MANET, Staggered broadcast protocol and types of caching schemes used in VOD systems. A. Video on Demand System over MANET There are many VOD systems over MANET are proposed to reduce the waiting time for the mobile clients to get the video requested. MobiVoD is an example of VOD System over MANET where the system is classified to three components, the server as a main provider for the videos, Local Forwarder as a disseminate point of video to mobile clients, and mobile clients as a subscriber who receives and watches video. MANET environment enable the mobile clients to communicate and connect with each other through direct wireless links such as IEEE 802.11. All the videos will be stored in the main server and Local Forwarder (LF) is used to receive videos from the server and then broadcast the videos as segments through the wireless interface card to mobile clients. The server and the Local Forwarder are interconnected via an infrastructure-based wireless network. The local forwarder provides the services to the mobile clients within the coverage area, in the same time the mobile clients An Effective Neighborhood Initial-Playback Based Caching Scheme for Video on Demand over Mobile Ad Hoc Network Saleh Ali Alomari, Member, IACSIT, Vaithegy Doraisamy, and Putra Sumari International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4, August 2012 500