The invention discloses a method of video on demand, a server side and a client side, wherein the method sets a code rate table in advance. The code rate table contains each video program, the code rate of each video program and the client side where each video program is arranged. The method comprises the following steps: receiving a request about the video program, sent by the visit client side, the request including an appointed code rate; if searching no visited client side with the video program equal to the appointed code rate in the code rate table, then searching the code rate larger than the appointed code rate, and acquiring the client side corresponding to the searched code rate in the code table, indicating the visited client side to compress the video program based on the appointed code rate, and indicating the visited client side to acquire the compressed video program, and adding the appointed code rate and the visited client side to the code rate corresponding to the video program requested by the visiting client side. The scheme of the invention can provide the video program of the appointed code rate to the client side.