NEWCAST: Anticipating Resource Management and QoE Provisioning for Mobile Video Streaming

The knowledge of future throughput variations in mobile networks becomes more and more possible today thanks to the rich contextual information provided by mobile applications and services and smartphone sensors. It is even likely that such contextual information, which may include traffic, mobility and radio conditions will lead to a novel agile resource management not yet thought of. In this paper, we propose an framework (called NEWCAST) that anticipates the throughput variations to deliver video streaming content. We develop an optimization problem that realizes a fundamental trade-off among critical metrics that impact the user's perceptual quality of experience (QoE) and the cost of system utilization. Both simulated and real-world throughput traces collected from [1], were carried out to evaluate the performance of NEWCAST. In particular, we show from our numerical results that NEWCAST provides the efficiency that the new 5G architectures require in terms of computational complexity and robustness. We also implement a prototype system of NEWCAST and evaluate it in a real environment with a real player to show its efficiency and scalability compared to baseline adaptive bitrate algorithms.Comment: 14 pages, 22 figure

Backward-Shifted Strategies Based on SVC for HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming

Although HTTP-based video streaming can easily penetrate firewalls and profit from Web caches, the underlying TCP may introduce large delays in case of a sudden capacity loss. To avoid an interruption of the video stream in such cases we propose the Backward-Shifted Coding (BSC). Based on Scalable Video Coding (SVC), BSC adds a time-shifted layer of redundancy to the video stream such that future frames are downloaded at any instant. This pre-fetched content maintains a fluent video stream even under highly variant network conditions and leads to high Quality of Experience (QoE). We characterize this QoE gain by analyzing initial buffering time, re-buffering time and content resolution using the Ballot theorem. The probability generating functions of the playback interruption and of the initial buffering latency are provided in closed form. We further compute the quasi-stationary distribution of the video quality, in order to compute the average quality, as well as temporal variability in video quality. Employing these analytic results to optimize QoE shows interesting trade-offs and video streaming at outstanding fluency.Comment: 9 page

Tiyuntsong: A Self-Play Reinforcement Learning Approach for ABR Video Streaming

Existing reinforcement learning~(RL)-based adaptive bitrate~(ABR) approaches outperform the previous fixed control rules based methods by improving the Quality of Experience~(QoE) score, as the QoE metric can hardly provide clear guidance for optimization, finally resulting in the unexpected strategies. In this paper, we propose \emph{Tiyuntsong}, a self-play reinforcement learning approach with generative adversarial network~(GAN)-based method for ABR video streaming. Tiyuntsong learns strategies automatically by training two agents who are competing against each other. Note that the competition results are determined by a set of rules rather than a numerical QoE score that allows clearer optimization objectives. Meanwhile, we propose GAN Enhancement Module to extract hidden features from the past status for preserving the information without the limitations of sequence lengths. Using testbed experiments, we show that the utilization of GAN significantly improves the Tiyuntsong's performance. By comparing the performance of ABRs, we observe that Tiyuntsong also betters existing ABR algorithms in the underlying metrics.Comment: Published in ICME 201

Quality of Experience from Cache Hierarchies: Keep your low-bitrate close, and high-bitrate closer

Recent studies into streaming media delivery suggest that performance gains from cache hierarchies such as Information-Centric Networks (ICNs) may be negated by Dynamic Adaptive Streaming (DAS), the de facto method for retrieving multimedia content. The bitrate adaptation mechanisms that drive video streaming clash with caching hierarchies in ways that affect users' Quality of Experience (QoE). Cache performance also diminishes as consumers dynamically select content encoded at different bitrates. In this paper we use the evidence to draw a novel insight: in a cache hierarchy for adaptive streaming content, bitrates should be prioritized over or alongside popularity and hit rates. We build on this insight to propose RippleCache as a family of cache placement schemes that safeguard high-bitrate content at the edge and push low-bitrate content into the network core. Doing so reduces contention of cache resources, as well as congestion in the network. To validate RippleCache claims we construct two separate implementations. We design RippleClassic as a benchmark solution that optimizes content placement by maximizing a measure for cache hierarchies shown to have high correlation with QoE. In addition, our lighter-weight RippleFinder is then re-designed with distributed execution for application in large-scale systems. RippleCache performance gains are reinforced by evaluations in NS-3 against state-of-the-art baseline approaches, using standard measures of QoE as defined by the DASH Industry Forum. Measurements show that RippleClassic and RippleFinder deliver content that suffers less oscillation and rebuffering, as well as the highest levels of video quality, indicating overall improvements to QoE.Comment: submitted to IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networkin

Objective assessment of region of interest-aware adaptive multimedia streaming quality

Adaptive multimedia streaming relies on controlled adjustment of content bitrate and consequent video quality variation in order to meet the bandwidth constraints of the communication link used for content delivery to the end-user. The values of the easy to measure network-related Quality of Service metrics have no direct relationship with the way moving images are perceived by the human viewer. Consequently variations in the video stream bitrate are not clearly linked to similar variation in the user perceived quality. This is especially true if some human visual system-based adaptation techniques are employed. As research has shown, there are certain image regions in each frame of a video sequence on which the users are more interested than in the others. This paper presents the Region of Interest-based Adaptive Scheme (ROIAS) which adjusts differently the regions within each frame of the streamed multimedia content based on the user interest in them. ROIAS is presented and discussed in terms of the adjustment algorithms employed and their impact on the human perceived video quality. Comparisons with existing approaches, including a constant quality adaptation scheme across the whole frame area, are performed employing two objective metrics which estimate user perceived video quality

Learning to Predict Streaming Video QoE: Distortions, Rebuffering and Memory

Mobile streaming video data accounts for a large and increasing percentage of wireless network traffic. The available bandwidths of modern wireless networks are often unstable, leading to difficulties in delivering smooth, high-quality video. Streaming service providers such as Netflix and YouTube attempt to adapt their systems to adjust in response to these bandwidth limitations by changing the video bitrate or, failing that, allowing playback interruptions (rebuffering). Being able to predict end user' quality of experience (QoE) resulting from these adjustments could lead to perceptually-driven network resource allocation strategies that would deliver streaming content of higher quality to clients, while being cost effective for providers. Existing objective QoE models only consider the effects on user QoE of video quality changes or playback interruptions. For streaming applications, adaptive network strategies may involve a combination of dynamic bitrate allocation along with playback interruptions when the available bandwidth reaches a very low value. Towards effectively predicting user QoE, we propose Video Assessment of TemporaL Artifacts and Stalls (Video ATLAS): a machine learning framework where we combine a number of QoE-related features, including objective quality features, rebuffering-aware features and memory-driven features to make QoE predictions. We evaluated our learning-based QoE prediction model on the recently designed LIVE-Netflix Video QoE Database which consists of practical playout patterns, where the videos are afflicted by both quality changes and rebuffering events, and found that it provides improved performance over state-of-the-art video quality metrics while generalizing well on different datasets. The proposed algorithm is made publicly available at http://live.ece.utexas.edu/research/Quality/VideoATLAS release_v2.rar.Comment: under review in Transactions on Image Processin

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Cloud Gaming With Foveated Graphics

Cloud gaming enables playing high end games, originally designed for PC or game console setups, on low end devices, such as net-books and smartphones, by offloading graphics rendering to GPU powered cloud servers. However, transmitting the high end graphics requires a large amount of available network bandwidth, even though it is a compressed video stream. Foveated video encoding (FVE) reduces the bandwidth requirement by taking advantage of the non-uniform acuity of human visual system and by knowing where the user is looking. We have designed and implemented a system for cloud gaming with foveated graphics using a consumer grade real-time eye tracker and an open source cloud gaming platform. In this article, we describe the system and its evaluation through measurements with representative games from different genres to understand the effect of parameterization of the FVE scheme on bandwidth requirements and to understand its feasibility from the latency perspective. We also present results from a user study. The results suggest that it is possible to find a "sweet spot" for the encoding parameters so that the users hardly notice the presence of foveated encoding but at the same time the scheme yields most of the bandwidth savings achievable.Comment: Submitted for publication in ACM TOM

Estimation of optimal encoding ladders for tiled 360{\deg} VR video in adaptive streaming systems

Given the significant industrial growth of demand for virtual reality (VR), 360{\deg} video streaming is one of the most important VR applications that require cost-optimal solutions to achieve widespread proliferation of VR technology. Because of its inherent variability of data-intensive content types and its tiled-based encoding and streaming, 360{\deg} video requires new encoding ladders in adaptive streaming systems to achieve cost-optimal and immersive streaming experiences. In this context, this paper targets both the provider's and client's perspectives and introduces a new content-aware encoding ladder estimation method for tiled 360{\deg} VR video in adaptive streaming systems. The proposed method first categories a given 360{\deg} video using its features of encoding complexity and estimates the visual distortion and resource cost of each bitrate level based on the proposed distortion and resource cost models. An optimal encoding ladder is then formed using the proposed integer linear programming (ILP) algorithm by considering practical constraints. Experimental results of the proposed method are compared with the recommended encoding ladders of professional streaming service providers. Evaluations show that the proposed encoding ladders deliver better results compared to the recommended encoding ladders in terms of objective quality for 360{\deg} video, providing optimal encoding ladders using a set of service provider's constraint parameters.Comment: The 19th IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (ISM 2017), Taichung, Taiwa

On the impact of video stalling and video quality in the case of camera switching during adaptive streaming of sports content

The widespread usage of second screens, in combination with mobile video streaming technologies like HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS), enable new means for taking end-users' Quality of Experience (QoE) to the next level. For sports events, these technological evolutions can, for example, enhance the overall engagement of remote fans or give them more control over the content. In this paper, we consider the case of adaptively streaming multi-camera sports content to tablet devices, enabling the end-user to dynamically switch cameras. Our goal is to subjectively evaluate the trade-off between video stalling duration (as a result of requesting another camera feed) and initial video quality of the new feed. Our results show that short video stallings do not significantly influence overall quality ratings, that quality perception is highly influenced by the video quality at the moment of camera switching and that large quality fluctuations should be avoided