Mukautuvien videon toisto algoritmien evaluointi obiilipilivipelaamisessa

Mobile cloud gaming has recently gained popularity as a result of improvements in the quality of internet connections and mobile networks. Under stable conditions, current LTE networks can provide a suitable platform for the demanding requirements of mobile cloud gaming. However, since the quality of mobile network connections constantly change, the network may be unable to always provide the best possible service to all clients. Thus, the ability to adapt is necessary for a mobile cloud gaming platform in order to compensate for changing bandwidth conditions in mobile networks. One approach for doing this is to change the quality of the video stream to match the available bandwidth of the network. This thesis evaluates an adaptive streaming method implemented on a mobile cloud gaming platform called GamingAnywhere and provides an alternative approach for estimating the available bandwidth by measuring the signal strength values of a mobile device. Experimentation was conducted in a real LTE network to determine the best approach in reconfiguring the encoder of the video stream to match the bandwidth of the network. The results show that increasing the constant-rate-factor parameter of the video encoder by 12 reduces the necessary bandwidth to about half. Thus, changing this video encoder parameter provides an effective means to compensate for significant changes in the bandwidth. However, high values of the constant-rate-factor parameter can considerably reduce the quality of the video stream. Thus, the frame rate of the video should be lowered if the constant-rate-factor already has a high value.Mobiilipilvipelaaminen on viimeaikoina kerännyt suosiota parantuneiden internet yhteyksien ja mobiiliverkkojen ansioista. Normaali olosuhteissa nykyiset LTE verkot tarjoavat sopivan alustan mobiili pilvipelaamisen koviin vaatimuksiin. Mobiiliverkkojen yhteyden laatu kuitenkin vaihtelee jatkuvasti ja kaikille käyttäjille ei voida aina tarjota parasta mahdollista yhteyttä. Mukautuminen vaihtelevaan yhteyden laatuun on siis tarpeellista pilvipelaamisalustalle. Tämän voi tehdä esimerkiksi muuttamalla videon kuvanlaatua sopivaksi käytössä olevaan kaistaan. Tässä työssä arvioidaan GamingAnywhere alustalle toteutettu mukautuva videon toistomenetelmä ja esitellään vaihtoehtoinen tapa arvioida käytettävissä olevaa kaistaa mittaamalla mobiilisignaalin vahvuutta mobiililaitteessa. Aidossa LTE verkossa suoritettujen kokeiden avulla selvitettiin paras tapa konfiguroida video enkooderi mukautumaan käytettävissä olevaan kaistan määrään. Tuloksista selviää, että constant-rate-factor-parametrin arvon nostaminen kahdellatoista laskee tarvittavan kaistan määrän noin puoleen. Se on siis tehokkain tapa mukautua merkittäviin muutoksiin kaistan leveydessä. Liian suuret constant-rate-factor-parametrin arvot kuitenkin heikentävät kuvanlaatua merkittävästi, joten kuvataajuutta voi myös alentaa jos parametrin arvo on jo liian suuri

A framework for realistic 3D tele-immersion

Meeting, socializing and conversing online with a group of people using teleconferencing systems is still quite differ- ent from the experience of meeting face to face. We are abruptly aware that we are online and that the people we are engaging with are not in close proximity. Analogous to how talking on the telephone does not replicate the experi- ence of talking in person. Several causes for these differences have been identified and we propose inspiring and innova- tive solutions to these hurdles in attempt to provide a more realistic, believable and engaging online conversational expe- rience. We present the distributed and scalable framework REVERIE that provides a balanced mix of these solutions. Applications build on top of the REVERIE framework will be able to provide interactive, immersive, photo-realistic ex- periences to a multitude of users that for them will feel much more similar to having face to face meetings than the expe- rience offered by conventional teleconferencing systems

Exploiting coherence in time-varying voxel data

We encode time-varying voxel data for efficient storage and streaming. We store the equivalent of a separate sparse voxel octree for each frame, but utilize both spatial and temporal coherence to reduce the amount of memory needed. We represent the time-varying voxel data in a single directed acyclic graph with one root per time step. In this graph, we avoid storing identical regions by keeping one unique instance and pointing to that from several parents. We further reduce the memory consumption of the graph by minimizing the number of bits per pointer and encoding the result into a dense bitstream

HEVC based Stereo Video codec

Development of stereo video codecs in latest multi-view extension of HEVC (MV-HEVC) with higher compression efficiency has been an active area of research. In this paper, a frame interleaved stereo video coding scheme based on MVHEVC standard codec is proposed. The proposed codec applies a reduced layer approach to encode the frame interleaved stereo sequences. A frame interleaving algorithm is developed to reorder the stereo video frames into a monocular video, such that the proposed codec can gain advantage from inter-views and temporal correlations to improve its coding performance. To evaluate the performance of the proposed codec; three standard multi-view test video sequences, named “Poznan_Street”, “Kendo” and “Newspaper1”, were selected and coded using the proposed codec and the standard MV-HEVC codec at different QPs and bitrates. Experimental results show that the proposed codec gives a significantly higher coding performance to that of the standard MV-HEVC codec at all bitrates

Fresh Analysis of Streaming Media Stored on the Web

With the steady increase in the bandwidth available to end users and Web sites hosting user generated content, there appears to be more multimedia content on the Web than ever before. Studies to quantify media stored on the Web done in 1997 and 2003 are now dated since the nature, size and number of streaming media objects on the Web have changed considerably. Although there have been more recent studies characterizing specific streaming media sites like YouTube, there are only a few studies that focus on characterizing the media stored on the Web as a whole. We build customized tools to crawl the Web, identify streaming media content and extract the characteristics of the streaming media found. We choose 16 different starting points and crawled 1.25 million Web pages from each starting point. Using the custom built tools, the media objects are identified and analyzed to determine attributes including media type, media length, codecs used for encoding, encoded bitrate, resolution, and aspect ratio. A little over half the media clips we encountered are video. MP3 and AAC are the most prevalent audio codecs whereas H.264 and FLV are the most common video codecs. The median size and encoded bitrates of stored media have increased since the last study. Information on the characteristics of stored multimedia and their trends over time can help system designers. The results can also be useful for empirical Internet measurements studies that attempt to mimic the behavior of streaming media traffic over the Internet

Interactive Real-Time Embedded Systems Education Infused with Applied Internet Telephony

The transition from traditional circuit-switched phone systems to modern packet-based Internet telephony networks demands tools to support Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) development. In this paper, we introduce the XinuPhone, an integrated hardware/software approach for educating users about VoIP technology on a real-time embedded platform. We propose modular course topics for design-oriented, hands-on laboratory exercises: filter design, timing, serial communications, interrupts and resource budgeting, network transmission, and system benchmarking. Our open-source software platform encourages development and testing of new CODECs alongside existing standards, unlike similar commercial solutions. Furthermore, the supporting hardware features inexpensive, readily available components designed specifically for educational and research users on a limited budget. The XinuPhone is especially good for experimenting with design trade-offs as well as interactions between real-time software and hardware components