Upon user request it opens the sele

Upon user request it opens the selected video or audio file, then determines its media type and overall size. The packet payload size is set to 1024 bytes and generation size is 64. Upon creating a new data stream, the server reads a data chunk (64 kbytes) from the file to fill the input buffer for the first generation. It also calculates the total number of generations based on the overall file size. Then it begins to send uncoded packets and some metadata with a specified data rate, which is slightly higher than the native data rate of the media file. All packets are sent to the broadcast address of the wireless interface. After sending 64 uncoded packets, the server transmits several encoded messages in order to repair all packet losses of the individual receivers. The actual number of these extra encoded packets can be adjusted based on the current network conditions. Of course, this approach would require periodic feedback from several receivers. A simple solution is to always add a large overhead (e.g., 50 percent) to combat packet losses even under the worst conditions. After sending a specific number of encoded packets, the server moves on to the next generation. It fills its input buffer with a new data chunk that is read from the input media file. Then it begins to broadcast uncoded (and later encoded) packets for the current generation, and this process continues until we reach the end of the input file.