Need advice about how chunked streaming technologies work with cache settings

[AlanO]

I'm working with the HDS streaming technologies, within the Adobe
Flash world, and I'm trying to compile a set if 'FAQs' about each main
browser available to consumers and how it will react to the 'chunks'
being delivered via the HTTP stack.

My current understanding on Chrome/Chromium is that, although the
Adobe Flash plugin handles presentation of the video, the chunks are
requested via the host browser's network stack. Resulting in an HTTP
request for a chunk (aka 'fragment').

A couple of things have struck me about this:

1/ What is the default setting in Chrome/Chromium for the Cache? Is it
RAM then Disk. Is this flow described anywhere?

2/ How is garbage collection instigated - I note that in Chrome, the
default cache can take up huge amounts of disk space growing without
some sort of size limit it seems, plus you can only change the cache
settings on the CLI of Chrome (no 'consumer' level configuration in
the 'preferences' dialogs). I wonder how this will affect consumers
feelings about cache that is being filled with fragments.

3/ What are the methods employed when multiple chunks are requested -
as with loading a web page, there is some 'pipeline' going on in the
network stack. Perhaps limiting the total number of working threads
for 'same domain' requests - this could impact on HDS chunks. Consider
where more than one HDS stream is present in a users browser (e.g.
multiple tabs/windows with an HDS stream) - if chunks are served from
the same FQDN, would there be a 'fight' due to slots within the worker
threads in the network stack?

Although I mention HDS here, this would likely go for any other
chunked streaming methods (MPEG-DASH, HLS) which may have a client
implemented inside a browser host.

I hope that someone in your team could assist me with these queries.

Alan

[AlanO]

I just realised I posted this from my personal Google Account.

I should be clear - I am a member of staff at the BBC and I work on the Streaming Technologies we use as a broadcaster. This should, perhaps, identify the scale of content that may start breaking Chrome/Chromium browsers.

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Alan

[Jesse Fulton]

I'd actually be very interested in learning about this as well