Efficient Video Transport over Lossy Networks

Nowadays, packet video is an important application of the Internet. Unfortunately the capacity of the Internet is still very heterogeneous because it connects high bandwidth ATM networks as well as low bandwidth ISDN dial in lines. The MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video compression standards provide efficient video encoding for high and low bandwidth media streams. In particular they include two paradigms which make those standards suitable for the transmission of video via heterogeneous networks. Both support layered video streams and MPEG-4 additionally allows the independent coding of video objects. In this paper we discuss those two paradigms, give an overview of the MPEG video compression standards and describe transport protocols for Real Time Media transport over lossy networks. Furthermore, we propose a real-time segmentation approach for extracting video objects in teleteaching scenarios

Development of Campus Video-Conference System Based on Peer-To-Peer Architecture

Peer to Peer (P2P) systems inherently have high scalability, robustness and fault tolerance because there is no centralized server and the network self-organizes itself. This is achieved at the cost of higher latency for locating the resources of interest in the P2P overlay network. This paper describes the design and implementation of campus video conference system based on P2P architecture that was tested within premises of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. The proposed Campus video conference system is made up of five modules which are the media stream engine, the conferencing control protocol, transmission module, TCP/UDP module and the user interface module. The media stream engine is responsible for audio/video capture and playback, the conferencing control protocol defines a set of conventions governing the structure and behavior of communication messages, the transmission module consists of a peer and a distribution network constituting of the peers also the delivery and exchange of streaming data while the audio manager and video manager use TCP/UDP to broadcast to other peer. The proposed system will offer smooth video conferencing with low delay and seldom and short freezes. It is believed that this videoconference system will bring video telephony to a new level of quality and will lead to a new trend in everyday communications in the university community

A hybrid ACO/PSO based algorithm for QoS multicast routing problem

AbstractMany Internet multicast applications such as videoconferencing, distance education, and online simulation require to send information from a source to some selected destinations. These applications have stringent Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements that include delay, loss rate, bandwidth, and delay jitter. This leads to the problem of routing multicast traffic satisfying QoS requirements. The above mentioned problem is known as the QoS constrained multicast routing problem and is NP Complete. In this paper, we present a swarming agent based intelligent algorithm using a hybrid Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)/Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique to optimize the multicast tree. The algorithm starts with generating a large amount of mobile agents in the search space. The ACO algorithm guides the agents’ movement by pheromones in the shared environment locally, and the global maximum of the attribute values are obtained through the random interaction between the agents using PSO algorithm. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated through simulation. The simulation results reveal that our algorithm performs better than the existing algorithms

A layered multicast packet video system

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references.Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.Software based desktop videoconferencing tools are developed to demonstrate techniques necessary for video delivery in heterogeneous packet networks. Using the current network infrastructure and no network resource reservation, a one-to-many implementation is designed around a two-layer pyramidal video coder. During periods of congestion, the network routers give priority to the base layer, which by itself allows reconstruction of reasonable quality video. Receiver feedback is used to lower the output rate of the encoder's low priority pyramidal layer when all receivers are suffering high packet loss. Each of the two layers is transmitted on a separate multicast channel. Under persistent congestion, an individual receiver will discard the low priority pyramidal layer, which allows the network to prune the multicast tree 'd congestion. A new scheme is examined where if the other receivers back and avoi are agreeable, the source will respond to a receiver pruning its pyramidal layer by lowering its rate and allowing the receiver to quickly rejoin the pyramidal layer at a quality level higher than what the high priority base layer can provide by itself. Another new scheme is described where an agent on the receiver's local router provides spare capacity information to assist the receiver in its decision to rejoin the pyramidal layer

Multimedia Networks: Fundamentals and Future Directions

Multimedia has become an integral part of computing and communications environment, and networks are carrying ever-increasing volume of multimedia information. The main characteristics of multimedia information are high-volume and bursty traffic, with low tolerance to delay and delay variance. The legacy networks (designed in 70s and 80s) are not able to meet these requirements. Enhancements to the older networking technologies have been developed to convert these into multimedia networks. Enhancements to LANs include Switched Ethernet, Isochronous Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 100VGAnyLAN, FDDI-II, and Synchronous FDDI. WAN options for multimedia networking include digital leased lines and ISDN. The Internet has revolutionized business and personal communications, but falls short of being a genuine multimedia network. To make the Internet capable of carrying multimedia traffic, new protocols such as MBone, ST-II, RTP, and RSVP have been developed. Internet2 is a new initiative that is aimed at overcoming the problems of throughput, delay and jitter encountered on the original Internet. One technology that was developed with multimedia networking as one of its main applications, is the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology. Upcoming Gigabit Ethernet technology will provide a path for upgrading current Ethernet networks into multimedia networks

Quality Of Service Enabled Cross-Layer Multicast Framework For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks.

Rangkaian ad hoc bergerak merupakan suatu rangkaian tanpa wayar yang boleh dibentuk secara bebas, dinamik serta disusunatur dan ditadbir dalam bentuk topologi rangkaian sementara dan arbitrari. Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are wireless networks that can freely and dynamically be created, organized and administered into arbitrary and temporary network topologies

Dynamic adaptation of streamed real-time E-learning videos over the internet

Even though the e-learning is becoming increasingly popular in the academic environment, the quality of synchronous e-learning video is still substandard and significant work needs to be done to improve it. The improvements have to be brought about taking into considerations both: the network requirements and the psycho- physical aspects of the human visual system. One of the problems of the synchronous e-learning video is that the head-and-shoulder video of the instructor is mostly transmitted. This video presentation can be made more interesting by transmitting shots from different angles and zooms. Unfortunately, the transmission of such multi-shot videos will increase packet delay, jitter and other artifacts caused by frequent changes of the scenes. To some extent these problems may be reduced by controlled reduction of the quality of video so as to minimise uncontrolled corruption of the stream. Hence, there is a need for controlled streaming of a multi-shot e-learning video in response to the changing availability of the bandwidth, while utilising the available bandwidth to the maximum. The quality of transmitted video can be improved by removing the redundant background data and utilising the available bandwidth for sending high-resolution foreground information. While a number of schemes exist to identify and remove the background from the foreground, very few studies exist on the identification and separation of the two based on the understanding of the human visual system. Research has been carried out to define foreground and background in the context of e-learning video on the basis of human psychology. The results have been utilised to propose methods for improving the transmission of e-learning videos. In order to transmit the video sequence efficiently this research proposes the use of Feed- Forward Controllers that dynamically characterise the ongoing scene and adjust the streaming of video based on the availability of the bandwidth. In order to satisfy a number of receivers connected by varied bandwidth links in a heterogeneous environment, the use of Multi-Layer Feed-Forward Controller has been researched. This controller dynamically characterises the complexity (number of Macroblocks per frame) of the ongoing video sequence and combines it with the knowledge of availability of the bandwidth to various receivers to divide the video sequence into layers in an optimal way before transmitting it into network. The Single-layer Feed-Forward Controller inputs the complexity (Spatial Information and Temporal Information) of the on-going video sequence along with the availability of bandwidth to a receiver and adjusts the resolution and frame rate of individual scenes to transmit the sequence optimised to give the most acceptable perceptual quality within the bandwidth constraints. The performance of the Feed-Forward Controllers have been evaluated under simulated conditions and have been found to effectively regulate the streaming of real-time e-learning videos in order to provide perceptually improved video quality within the constraints of the available bandwidth