Coded Wireless Video Broadcast/Multicast

Advancements in video coding, compact media display, and communication devices, particularly in emerging broadband wireless access networks, have created many foreseeable and exciting applications of video broadcast/multicast over the wireless meidum. For efficient and robust wireless video broadcast/multicast under fading, this thesis presents and examines a novel cross-layer framework that exploits the interplay between applying protections on a successively refinable video source and transmitting through a layered broadcast/multicast channel. The framework is realistically achieved and evaluated by using multiple description coding (MDC) on a scalable video source and using superposition coding (SPC) for layered broadcast/multicast transmissions. An analytical model using the total received/recovered video bitstreams from each coded wireless broadcast/multicast signal is developed, which serves as a metric of video quality for the system analysis and optimization. An efficient methodology has demonstrated that optimal power allocations and modulation selections can be practically determined to improve the broadcast/multicast video quality. From the information-theoretical perspective, a general closed-form formula is derived for the end-to-end distortion analysis of the proposed framework, which is applicable to any (n, k) protection code applied on a successive refinable source with a Gaussian distribution over layered Gaussian broadcast channels. The results reveal the scenarios for the proposed framework to lead to a lower distortion than a legacy system without any protection. By analyzing the characteristics of the closed-form formula, an efficient O(n log n) algorithm is developed to determine optimal k values in the (n, k) protection codes that minimize the distortion under the framework. Finally, a cross-layer design of logical SPC modulation is introduced to achieve layered broadcast/multicast for scalable video. It serves as an alternative for practically implementing the proposed framework of coded wireless video broadcast/multicast, if the hardware-based SPC component is not available in a wireless system. In summary, the thesis presents comprehensive analyses, simulations, and experiments to understand, investigate, and justify the effectiveness of the proposed cross-layer framework of coded wireless video broadcast/multicast. More importantly, this thesis contributes to the advancement in the related fields of communication engineering and information theory by introducing a new design dimension in terms of protection. This is unique when compared to previously-reported layered approaches that are often manipulating conventional parameters alone such as power and modulation scheme. The impact of this dimension was unapparent in the past, but is now proven as an effective means to enable high-quality, efficient, and robust wireless video broadcast/multicast for promising media applications

Service quality assurance for the IPTV networks

The objective of the proposed research is to design and evaluate end-to-end solutions to support the Quality of Experience (QoE) for the Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service. IPTV is a system that integrates voice, video, and data delivery into a single Internet Protocol (IP) framework to enable interactive broadcasting services at the subscribers. It promises significant advantages for both service providers and subscribers. For instance, unlike conventional broadcasting systems, IPTV broadcasts will not be restricted by the limited number of channels in the broadcast/radio spectrum. Furthermore, IPTV will provide its subscribers with the opportunity to access and interact with a wide variety of high-quality on-demand video content over the Internet. However, these advantages come at the expense of stricter quality of service (QoS) requirements than traditional Internet applications. Since IPTV is considered as a real-time broadcast service over the Internet, the success of the IPTV service depends on the QoE perceived by the end-users. The characteristics of the video traffic as well as the high-quality requirements of the IPTV broadcast impose strict requirements on transmission delay. IPTV framework has to provide mechanisms to satisfy the stringent delay, jitter, and packet loss requirements of the IPTV service over lossy transmission channels with varying characteristics. The proposed research focuses on error recovery and channel change latency problems in IPTV networks. Our specific aim is to develop a content delivery framework that integrates content features, IPTV application requirements, and network characteristics in such a way that the network resource utilization can be optimized for the given constraints on the user perceived service quality. To achieve the desired QoE levels, the proposed research focuses on the design of resource optimal server-based and peer-assisted delivery techniques. First, by analyzing the tradeoffs on the use of proactive and reactive repair techniques, a solution that optimizes the error recovery overhead is proposed. Further analysis on the proposed solution is performed by also focusing on the use of multicast error recovery techniques. By investigating the tradeoffs on the use of network-assisted and client-based channel change solutions, distributed content delivery frameworks are proposed to optimize the error recovery performance. Next, bandwidth and latency tradeoffs associated with the use of concurrent delivery streams to support the IPTV channel change are analyzed, and the results are used to develop a resource-optimal channel change framework that greatly improves the latency performance in the network. For both problems studied in this research, scalability concerns for the IPTV service are addressed by properly integrating peer-based delivery techniques into server-based solutions.Ph.D

Towards video streaming in IoT environments: vehicular communication perspective

Multimedia oriented Internet of Things (IoT) enables pervasive and real-time communication of video, audio and image data among devices in an immediate surroundings. Today's vehicles have the capability of supporting real time multimedia acquisition. Vehicles with high illuminating infrared cameras and customized sensors can communicate with other on-road devices using dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and 5G enabled communication technologies. Real time incidence of both urban and highway vehicular traffic environment can be captured and transmitted using vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication modes. Video streaming in vehicular IoT (VSV-IoT) environments is in growing stage with several challenges that need to be addressed ranging from limited resources in IoT devices, intermittent connection in vehicular networks, heterogeneous devices, dynamism and scalability in video encoding, bandwidth underutilization in video delivery, and attaining application-precise quality of service in video streaming. In this context, this paper presents a comprehensive review on video streaming in IoT environments focusing on vehicular communication perspective. Specifically, significance of video streaming in vehicular IoT environments is highlighted focusing on integration of vehicular communication with 5G enabled IoT technologies, and smart city oriented application areas for VSV-IoT. A taxonomy is presented for the classification of related literature on video streaming in vehicular network environments. Following the taxonomy, critical review of literature is performed focusing on major functional model, strengths and weaknesses. Metrics for video streaming in vehicular IoT environments are derived and comparatively analyzed in terms of their usage and evaluation capabilities. Open research challenges in VSV-IoT are identified as future directions of research in the area. The survey would benefit both IoT and vehicle industry practitioners and researchers, in terms of augmenting understanding of vehicular video streaming and its IoT related trends and issues

Treatment-Based Classi?cation in Residential Wireless Access Points

IEEE 802.11 wireless access points (APs) act as the central communication hub inside homes, connecting all networked devices to the Internet. Home users run a variety of network applications with diverse Quality-of-Service requirements (QoS) through their APs. However, wireless APs are often the bottleneck in residential networks as broadband connection speeds keep increasing. Because of the lack of QoS support and complicated configuration procedures in most off-the-shelf APs, users can experience QoS degradation with their wireless networks, especially when multiple applications are running concurrently. This dissertation presents CATNAP, Classification And Treatment iN an AP , to provide better QoS support for various applications over residential wireless networks, especially timely delivery for real-time applications and high throughput for download-based applications. CATNAP consists of three major components: supporting functions, classifiers, and treatment modules. The supporting functions collect necessary flow level statistics and feed it into the CATNAP classifiers. Then, the CATNAP classifiers categorize flows along three-dimensions: response-based/non-response-based, interactive/non-interactive, and greedy/non-greedy. Each CATNAP traffic category can be directly mapped to one of the following treatments: push/delay, limited advertised window size/drop, and reserve bandwidth. Based on the classification results, the CATNAP treatment module automatically applies the treatment policy to provide better QoS support. CATNAP is implemented with the NS network simulator, and evaluated against DropTail and Strict Priority Queue (SPQ) under various network and traffic conditions. In most simulation cases, CATNAP provides better QoS supports than DropTail: it lowers queuing delay for multimedia applications such as VoIP, games and video, fairly treats FTP flows with various round trip times, and is even functional when misbehaving UDP traffic is present. Unlike current QoS methods, CATNAP is a plug-and-play solution, automatically classifying and treating flows without any user configuration, or any modification to end hosts or applications

Towards A knowledge-Based Economy - Europe and Central Asia - Internet Development and Governance

The diversity and socio-economic differentiation of the real world prevents the full-scale cultivation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the benefit of all. Furthermore, the lack of determination and political will in some countries and slowness of responses to new technological opportunities in some others are responsible for the creation of another social divide – a digital one. The above problems were fully acknowledged by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Summit called for a joint international effort to overcome the digital divide between and within the United Nations Member States under the Digital Solidarity umbrella. This report was prepared as a follow-up to the Summit and represents a brief review of the status and trends in the area of ICT and Internet development in the UNECE region and provides background information on the state of the art in some relevant ICT subsectors in the Member States. The report focuses on the state of the Internet critical resources and, consequently, on the ICT and Internet penetration across countries and social groups. It also looks into existing Internet governance arrangements and makes some recommendations. The report contains three parts and conclusions. The first part, “Towards a Knowledge-based Economy: Progress Assessment”, highlights the situation in the region with regards to the digital divide, both between and within countries, and national strategies and actions aiming at overcoming barriers to accessing the Internet. The second part, “Internet Development: Current State of Critical Internet Resources in the UNECE Region”, concentrates on reviewing the physical Internet backbone, interconnection and connectivity within the Internet in the UNECE Member States. The third part, “Governing the Evolving Internet in the UNECE Region”, focuses on the issues of Internet Governance in the countries of the region, challenges faced by the countries and participation of key stakeholders in ICT and Internet policy formulation and implementation. The final part contains conclusions and recommendations.Internet, governance, knowledge-based economy, Europe, Central Asia, transition economies

Network reputation-based quality optimization of video delivery in heterogeneous wireless environments

The mass-market adoption of high-end mobile devices and increasing amount of video traffic has led the mobile operators to adopt various solutions to help them cope with the explosion of mobile broadband data traffic, while ensuring high Quality of Service (QoS) levels to their services. Deploying small-cell base stations within the existing macro-cellular networks and offloading traffic from the large macro-cells to the small cells is seen as a promising solution to increase capacity and improve network performance at low cost. Parallel use of diverse technologies is also employed. The result is a heterogeneous network environment (HetNets), part of the next generation network deployments. In this context, this thesis makes a step forward towards the “Always Best Experience” paradigm, which considers mobile users seamlessly roaming in the HetNets environment. Supporting ubiquitous connectivity and enabling very good quality of rich mobile services anywhere and anytime is highly challenging, mostly due to the heterogeneity of the selection criteria, such as: application requirements (e.g., voice, video, data, etc.); different device types and with various capabilities (e.g., smartphones, netbooks, laptops, etc.); multiple overlapping networks using diverse technologies (e.g., Wireless Local Area Networks (IEEE 802.11), Cellular Networks Long Term Evolution (LTE), etc.) and different user preferences. In fact, the mobile users are facing a complex decision when they need to dynamically select the best value network to connect to in order to get the “Always Best Experience”. This thesis presents three major contributions to solve the problem described above: 1) The Location-based Network Prediction mechanism in heterogeneous wireless networks (LNP) provides a shortlist of best available networks to the mobile user based on his location, history record and routing plan; 2) Reputation-oriented Access Network Selection mechanism (RANS) selects the best reputation network from the available networks for the mobile user based on the best trade-off between QoS, energy consumptions and monetary cost. The network reputation is defined based on previous user-network interaction, and consequent user experience with the network. 3) Network Reputation-based Quality Optimization of Video Delivery in heterogeneous networks (NRQOVD) makes use of a reputation mechanism to enhance the video content quality via multipath delivery or delivery adaptation

Virtualization of multicast services in WiMAX networks

Multicast service is one of the methods used to efficiently manage bandwidth when sending multimedia content. To improve bandwidth utilisation, virtualization is often invoked because of its additional features such as bandwidth sharing and support of services that require high volumes of transactional data. Currently, network providers are concerned with the bandwidth amount for efficient use of the limited wireless network capabilities and the provision of a better quality of service. The virtualization design of a multicast service framework should satisfy several objectives. For example, it should enable the interchange of service delivery between multiple networks with one shareable network infrastructure. Also, it should ensure efficient use of network resources and guarantee users' demands of Quality of Service (QoS). Thus, the design of virtualization of multicast service framework is a complex research study. Due to the bandwidth-related arguments, a strong focus has been put on technical issues that facilitate virtualization in wireless networks. A well-designed virtualized network guarantees users with the required quality service. Similarly, virtualization of multicast service is invoked to improve efficient utilisation of bandwidth in wireless networks. As wireless links prove to be unstable, packet loss is unavoidable when multicast service-oriented virtual artefacts are incorporated in wireless networks. In this thesis, a virtualized multicast framework was modelled by using Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP) methodology. Mixed Integer Linear Programing (MILP) was implemented in MATLAB to solve the GAP model. This was to optimise the allocation of multicast traffic to the appropriate virtual networks. Thus, the developed model allows users to have interchangeable services offered by multiple networks. Furthermore, Network Simulator version 3 (NS-3) was used to evaluate the performance of the virtualized multicast framework. Three applications, namely, voice over IP (VoIP), video streaming, and file download have been used to evaluate the performance of a multicast service virtualization framework in Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks using NS-3. The performance evaluation was based on whether MILP is used or not used. The results of experimentation have revealed that there is good performance of virtual networks when multicast traffic is sent over one single virtual network instead of sending it over multiple virtual networks. Similarly, the results show that the bandwidth is efficiently used because the multicast traffic is not delivered through multiple virtual networks. Overall, the concepts, the investigations and the model presented in this thesis can enable mobile network providers to achieve efficient use of bandwidth and provide the necessary means to support services for QoS differentiations and guarantees. Also, the multicast service virtualization framework provides an excellent tool that can enable network providers to interchange services. The developed model can serve as a basis for further extension. Specifically, the extension of the model can boost load balancing in the flow allocation problem and activate a virtual network to deliver traffic. This may rely on the QoS policy between network providers. Therefore, the model should consider the number of users in order to guarantee improved QoS

European Perspectives on the Information Society: Annual Monitoring Synthesis and Emerging Trend Updates

This report is one of the outcomes of the EPIS06 Project ¿ European Perspectives on the Information Society ¿ carried out by the ETEPS (European Techno-Economic Policy Support) network in cooperation with the Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC IPTS) with the aim of providing strategic intelligence to policy makers by taking a prospective view on the evolution of ICT. This report combines the Annual Monitoring Synthesis (AMS) Report and five Emerging Trend Updates (ETU). It forms one of the main building blocks of the project, establishing an observatory of trends in technology and business evolutions of ICT. More particularly, the Annual Monitoring Synthesis Report (AMS Report) aims to identify new ICT-related developments likely to have a significant impact on the future of the Information Society, both in terms of growth and jobs for Europe and R&D policy prioritisation. By scanning and monitoring recent major foresight exercises and industrial technology roadmaps, as well as other future-oriented analysis and policy papers, the AMS attempts to detect early signals and possible disruptive forces so as to enable timely policy responses and anticipate potential challenges for policy makers. The AMS is structured along six main themes which emerged as a result of the analysis: - Convergence of infrastructures, - Human-computer convergence ¿ technologies for direct human computer interaction, - Pervasive or ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence, - The future of the Internet, - Citizens¿ concerns, - Working life. A structured overview with a summary of each of the foresights, roadmaps and other sources studied is presented in the AMS report annex. In addition, five Emerging Trends Updates (ETU) present the results of focused briefs on emerging themes of interest for policy making, covering the following topics: - ETU1 on the state-of-the-art of the creative content sector, - ETU2 on ICT and the offshoring of services, - ETU3 on ICT and the role of ICTs as enablers for energy efficiency, - ETU4 on ICT tools and services in intelligent domestic and personal environments, - ETU5 on ICT and privacy in the Knowledge Society ¿ the case of search engines.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences