The class constrained bin packing problem with applications to video-on-demand

In this paper we present approximation results for the class constrained bin packing problem that has applications to Video-on-Demand Systems. In this problem we are given bins of capacity B with C compartments, and n items of Q different classes. The problem is to pack the items into the minimum number of bins, where each bin contains items of at most C different classes and has total items size at most B. We present several approximation algorithms for off-line and online versions of the problem.