Flexi-WVSNP-DASH: A Wireless Video Sensor Network Platform for the Internet of Things

abstract: Video capture, storage, and distribution in wireless video sensor networks (WVSNs) critically depends on the resources of the nodes forming the sensor networks. In the era of big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and distributed demand and solutions, there is a need for multi-dimensional data to be part of the Sensor Network data that is easily accessible and consumable by humanity as well as machinery. Images and video are expected to become as ubiquitous as is the scalar data in traditional sensor networks. The inception of video-streaming over the Internet, heralded a relentless research for effective ways of distributing video in a scalable and cost effective way. There has been novel implementation attempts across several network layers. Due to the inherent complications of backward compatibility and need for standardization across network layers, there has been a refocused attention to address most of the video distribution over the application layer. As a result, a few video streaming solutions over the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) have been proposed. Most notable are Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and the Motion Picture Experts Groups Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH). These frameworks, do not address the typical and future WVSN use cases. A highly flexible Wireless Video Sensor Network Platform and compatible DASH (WVSNP-DASH) are introduced. The platform's goal is to usher video as a data element that can be integrated into traditional and non-Internet networks. A low cost, scalable node is built from the ground up to be fully compatible with the Internet of Things Machine to Machine (M2M) concept, as well as the ability to be easily re-targeted to new applications in a short time. Flexi-WVSNP design includes a multi-radio node, a middle-ware for sensor operation and communication, a cross platform client facing data retriever/player framework, scalable security as well as a cohesive but decoupled hardware and software design.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios

[EN] The combination of broadcast and broadband (hybrid) technologies for delivering TV related media contents can bring fascinating opportunities. It is motivated by the large amount and diversity of media contents, together with the ubiquity and multiple connectivity capabilities of modern consumption devices. This paper presents an end-to-end platform for the preparation, delivery, and synchronized consumption of related hybrid (broadcast/broadband) media contents on a single device and/or on multiple close-by devices (i.e., a multi-device scenario). It is compatible with the latest version of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard (version 2.0.1). Additionally, it provides adaptive and efficient solutions for key issues not specified in that standard, but that are necessary to successfully deploy hybrid and multidevice media services. Moreover, apart from MPEG-DASH and HTML5, which are the broadband technologies adopted by HbbTV, the platform also provides support for using HTTP Live Streaming and Real-time Transport Protocol and its companion RTP Control Protocol broadband technologies. The presented platform can provide support for many hybrid media services. In this paper, in order to evaluate it, the use case of multi-device and multi-view TV service has been selected. The results of both objective and subjective assessments have been very satisfactory, in terms of performance (stability, smooth playout, delays, and sync accuracy), usability of the platform, usefulness of its functionalities, and the awaken interest in these kinds of platforms.This work was supported in part by the "Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional" and in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through R&D&I Support Program under Grant TEC2013-45492-R.Boronat, F.; Marfil-Reguero, D.; Montagud, M.; Pastor Castillo, FJ. (2017). HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2017.2781124S12

Network-aware video streaming for future media Internet

272 p

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

A multi-layer probing approach for video over 5G in vehicular scenarios

Fifth generation (5G) technologies are becoming a reality throughout the world. In parallel, vehicular networks rise their pace in terms of utilization; moreover, multimedia content transmissions are also getting an always increasing demand by their users. Besides the promised performance of 5G networks, several questions still arise among the community: are these networks capable of delivering high quality video streaming services in moving scenarios? What is the relationship between the network conditions and the video quality of experience? To answer to the previous questions, in this paper we propose a multi-layer probing approach able to assess video transmissions over 5G and 4G, combining data from all layers of a communication model, relating events from its origin layers. The probe's potential is thoroughly evaluated in two distinct video streaming use cases, both targeting a vehicular scenario supported by cellular 4G and 5G networks. Regarding the probe's performance, we show that a multitude of performance and quality indicators, from different stack layers, can be obtained. As for the performance of 4G and 5G networks in video streaming scenarios, the results have shown that the 5G links show a better overall performance in terms of video quality-of-experience, granting lower delays and jitter conditions, thus allowing video delay to be diminished and segment buffering to be better performed in comparison to 4G, while still showing adaptability in lightly traffic-saturated vehicular-to-vehicular scenarios.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

QoE on media deliveriy in 5G environments

231 p.5G expandirá las redes móviles con un mayor ancho de banda, menor latencia y la capacidad de proveer conectividad de forma masiva y sin fallos. Los usuarios de servicios multimedia esperan una experiencia de reproducción multimedia fluida que se adapte de forma dinámica a los intereses del usuario y a su contexto de movilidad. Sin embargo, la red, adoptando una posición neutral, no ayuda a fortalecer los parámetros que inciden en la calidad de experiencia. En consecuencia, las soluciones diseñadas para realizar un envío de tráfico multimedia de forma dinámica y eficiente cobran un especial interés. Para mejorar la calidad de la experiencia de servicios multimedia en entornos 5G la investigación llevada a cabo en esta tesis ha diseñado un sistema múltiple, basado en cuatro contribuciones.El primer mecanismo, SaW, crea una granja elástica de recursos de computación que ejecutan tareas de análisis multimedia. Los resultados confirman la competitividad de este enfoque respecto a granjas de servidores. El segundo mecanismo, LAMB-DASH, elige la calidad en el reproductor multimedia con un diseño que requiere una baja complejidad de procesamiento. Las pruebas concluyen su habilidad para mejorar la estabilidad, consistencia y uniformidad de la calidad de experiencia entre los clientes que comparten una celda de red. El tercer mecanismo, MEC4FAIR, explota las capacidades 5G de analizar métricas del envío de los diferentes flujos. Los resultados muestran cómo habilita al servicio a coordinar a los diferentes clientes en la celda para mejorar la calidad del servicio. El cuarto mecanismo, CogNet, sirve para provisionar recursos de red y configurar una topología capaz de conmutar una demanda estimada y garantizar unas cotas de calidad del servicio. En este caso, los resultados arrojan una mayor precisión cuando la demanda de un servicio es mayor

QoE-Centric Control and Management of Multimedia Services in Software Defined and Virtualized Networks

Multimedia services consumption has increased tremendously since the deployment of 4G/LTE networks. Mobile video services (e.g., YouTube and Mobile TV) on smart devices are expected to continue to grow with the emergence and evolution of future networks such as 5G. The end user’s demand for services with better quality from service providers has triggered a trend towards Quality of Experience (QoE) - centric network management through efficient utilization of network resources. However, existing network technologies are either unable to adapt to diverse changing network conditions or limited in available resources. This has posed challenges to service providers for provisioning of QoE-centric multimedia services. New networking solutions such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) can provide better solutions in terms of QoE control and management of multimedia services in emerging and future networks. The features of SDN, such as adaptability, programmability and cost-effectiveness make it suitable for bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications such as live video streaming, 3D/HD video and video gaming. However, the delivery of multimedia services over SDN/NFV networks to achieve optimized QoE, and the overall QoE-centric network resource management remain an open question especially in the advent development of future softwarized networks. The work in this thesis intends to investigate, design and develop novel approaches for QoE-centric control and management of multimedia services (with a focus on video streaming services) over software defined and virtualized networks. First, a video quality management scheme based on the traffic intensity under Dynamic Adaptive Video Streaming over HTTP (DASH) using SDN is developed. The proposed scheme can mitigate virtual port queue congestion which may cause buffering or stalling events during video streaming, thus, reducing the video quality. A QoE-driven resource allocation mechanism is designed and developed for improving the end user’s QoE for video streaming services. The aim of this approach is to find the best combination of network node functions that can provide an optimized QoE level to end-users through network node cooperation. Furthermore, a novel QoE-centric management scheme is proposed and developed, which utilizes Multipath TCP (MPTCP) and Segment Routing (SR) to enhance QoE for video streaming services over SDN/NFV-based networks. The goal of this strategy is to enable service providers to route network traffic through multiple disjointed bandwidth-satisfying paths and meet specific service QoE guarantees to the end-users. Extensive experiments demonstrated that the proposed schemes in this work improve the video quality significantly compared with the state-of-the- art approaches. The thesis further proposes the path protections and link failure-free MPTCP/SR-based architecture that increases survivability, resilience, availability and robustness of future networks. The proposed path protection and dynamic link recovery scheme achieves a minimum time to recover from a failed link and avoids link congestion in softwarized networks

Cache-Aware Adaptive Video Streaming in 5G networks

Η τεχνολογία προσαρμοστικής ροής video μέσω HTTP έχει επικρατήσει ως ο κυρίαρχος τρόπος μετάδοσης video στο Internet. Η τεχνολογία αυτή βασίζεται στη λήψη μικρών διαδοχικών τμημάτων video από έναν server. Μία πρόκληση που όμως δεν έχει διερευνηθεί επαρκώς είναι η λήψη τμημάτων video από περισσότερους από έναν servers, με τρόπο που να εξυπηρετεί τόσο τις ανάγκες του δικτύου όσο και τη βελτίωση της Ποιότητας Εμπειρίας του χρήστη (Quality of Experience, QoE). Η συγκεκριμένη διπλωματική εργασία θα διερευνήσει αυτό το πρόβλημα, προσομοιώνοντας ένα δίκτυο με πολλαπλούς video servers και διάφορους video clients. Στη συνέχεια, θα υλοποιήσει τόσο την δυνατότητα επικοινωνίας peer-to-many στα πλαίσια της προσαρμοστικής ροής video όσο και τον αλγόριθμο επιλογής video server. Όλα αυτά θα διερευνηθούν στο περιβάλλον του Mininet, που είναι ένας δικτυακός εξομοιωτής, για να προσομοιωθεί η τεχνολογία DASH με τη βοήθεια των κόμβων του δικτύου του εξομοιωτή. Αρχικά, το βίντεο χωρίστηκε σε μικρά κομμάτια με τη βοήθεια του εργαλείου ffmpeg και στη συνέχεια, υλοποιήθηκαν πειράματα που ένας πελάτης ζητούσε το βίντεο από έναν server προσωρινής αποθήκευσης (cache server). Αν το συγκεκριμένο τμήμα του βίντεο δεν υπήρχε εκεί, τότε στελνόταν αίτημα από τον server προσωρινής αποθήκευσης σε έναν διακομιστή που περιείχε όλα τα τμήματα του βίντεο (main server). Στα πειράματα αυτά εξετάστηκε και η προστιθέμενη δικτυακή κίνηση, με τελικό συμπέρασμα ότι το περιβάλλον του Mininet προκαλεί αναπόφευκτους περιορισμούς στη περίπτωση της δικτυακής κίνησης, καθώς παρατηρήσαμε πως το κανάλι του server βάσης δεδομένων παρέμενε ανενεργό καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια αιτημάτων από τον server προσωρινής αποθήκευσης, με αποτέλεσμα να δημιουργούνται συνθήκες μη-ρεαλιστικού δικτύου. Γι’ αυτόν τον λόγο, προβήκαμε στην υλοποίηση μιας νέας προσέγγισης, εξαλείφοντας το Mininet περιβάλλον και δουλεύοντας πάνω σε νέες τεχνικές προσθήκης δικτυακής κίνησης και τροποποιώντας την επικοινωνία των διακομιστών μεταξύ τους. Με αυτόν τον τρόπο, καταφέραμε να δείξουμε σαφέστερα τους περιορισμούς της προηγούμενης προσέγγισης αλλά και να συμπεράνουμε ότι η ύπαρξη servers προσωρινής αποθήκευσης είναι ένα χρήσιμο εργαλείο υπό όρους αύξησης της ποιότητας εμπειρίας ενός χρήστη. Η γενική τάση που παρατηρήθηκε ήταν ότι με την αύξηση του διαθέσιμου χώρου αποθήκευσης, η ποιότητα αναπαραγωγής του βίντεο ανέβαινε σε κάποιο βαθμό. Ταυτόχρονα όμως, το ποσοστό βελτίωσης αυτό, είναι άρρηκτα δεμένο με τον αλγόριθμο επιλογής κομματιών βίντεο που χρησιμοποιείται. Για ακόμα καλύτερα αποτελέσματα λοιπόν, θεωρείται αναγκαία η εύρεση της χρυσής τομής μεταξύ χωρητικότητας του χώρου προσωρινής αποθήκευσης και αλγορίθμου επιλογής κομματιών. Στην παρούσα διπλωματική παρουσιάζονται τα εξής κεφάλαια: Στο κεφάλαιο 1 αναφέρεται η ιστορική αναδρομή της τεχνολογίας των δικτύων. Στο κεφάλαιο 2 αναλύεται η τεχνολογία προσαρμοστικής ροής βίντεο μέσω HTTP. Στο κεφάλαιο 3 αναλύονται οι διαφορετικές τεχνικές προσωρινής αποθήκευσης. Στο κεφάλαιο 4 παρουσιάζεται η έννοια της Ποιότητας Εμπειρίας του χρήστη και η συσχέτισή της με πολλούς άλλους παράγοντες. Το κεφάλαιο 5 περιγράφεται αναλυτικά η διαδικασία στησίματος του περιβάλλοντος και τα διάφορα απαραίτητα εργαλεία για την υλοποίησή μας. Το κεφάλαιο 6 αναφέρει τα πειράματα μέσω Mininet, την τοπολογία και όλο το στήσιμο, καθώς και τους λόγους που μας οδήγησαν στην πορεία μιας διαφορετικής προσέγγισης. Στο κεφάλαιο 7 προτείνεται η διαφορετική προσέγγιση και παρουσιάζεται η μεθοδολογία και οι μετρικές. Επίσης, αναλύονται διαγράμματα που εξάχθηκαν από την ανάλυση τω μετρικών. Τέλος, το κεφάλαιο 8 αφορά τα συμπεράσματα και θέματα μελλοντικής έρευνας για βελτίωση της Ποιότητας Εμπειρίας του χρήστη περαιτέρω.Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) has prevailed as the dominant way of video transmission over the Internet. This technology is based on receiving small sequential video segments from a server. However, one challenge that has not been adequately examined, is the obtainment of video segments from more than one server, in a way that serves both the needs of the network and the improvement of the Quality of Experience (QoE). This thesis will investigate this problem by simulating a network with multiple video servers and a video client. It will then implement both the peer-to-many communication in the context of adaptive video streaming and the video server caching algorithm based on proposed criteria that will improve the status of the network and/or the user. All of this will be explored in the environment of Mininet, which is a network emulator, in order to simulate the DASH technology with the help of the emulator network nodes. Initially, the video was split into small segments using the ffmpeg tool, and then experiments were conducted in which a client requested the video from a cache server. If the segment could not be found in the cache server, then a request was sent from the cache server to a server that contained all segments of the video (main server). In these experiments, the added traffic was also examined, by concluded to the fact that the Mininet environment causes unavoidable limitations in the case of the traffic. What we observed was that the main server channel remained inactive throughout the requests of the cache server, resulting in unrealistic network conditions. For this reason, we have explored a new approach, eliminating the Mininet environment and working on new techniques for adding web traffic and modifying the communication of the servers, regarding the requests they receive. In this way, we were able to clearly show the limitations of the previous approach but also to conclude that the existence of caching servers is a useful tool in terms of increasing the quality of experience. The general tendency was that, as the available buffer size increased, the video playback quality increased to some extent. However, at the same time this improvement is linked to the random selection algorithm. For even better results, it is considered necessary to find an appropriate caching selection algorithm in order to take full advantage of the caching technology. The following chapters presented in this thesis are: Chapter 1 mentions the historical background of the networks. Chapter 2 analyzes the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP. Chapter 3 analyzes the caching techniques. Chapter 4 presents the concept of Quality of Experience and its correlation with many other factors. Chapter 5 describes in detail the process of setting up the environment and the various necessary tools for our implementation. Chapter 6 refers to the Mininet experiments, the topology, and the set-up, as well as the reasons that led us to a different approach. Chapter 7 proposes the different approach and presents the methodology and the metrics. Also, diagrams extracted from the analysis of the metrics are analyzed in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 8 summarizes the conclusions and issues of future research to improve the Quality of Experience even further