End-to-end 3D video communication over heterogeneous networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Three-dimensional technology, more commonly referred to as 3D technology, has revolutionised many fields including entertainment, medicine, and communications to name a few. In addition to 3D films, games, and sports channels, 3D perception has made tele-medicine a reality. By the year 2015, 30% of the all HD panels at home will be 3D enabled, predicted by consumer electronics manufacturers. Stereoscopic cameras, a comparatively mature technology compared to other 3D systems, are now being used by ordinary citizens to produce 3D content and share at a click of a button just like they do with the 2D counterparts via sites like YouTube. But technical challenges still exist, including with autostereoscopic multiview displays. 3D content requires many complex considerations--including how to represent it, and deciphering what is the best compression format--when considering transmission or storage, because of its increased amount of data. Any decision must be taken in the light of the available bandwidth or storage capacity, quality and user expectations. Free viewpoint navigation also remains partly unsolved. The most pressing issue getting in the way of widespread uptake of consumer 3D systems is the ability to deliver 3D content to heterogeneous consumer displays over the heterogeneous networks. Optimising 3D video communication solutions must consider the entire pipeline, starting with optimisation at the video source to the end display and transmission optimisation. Multi-view offers the most compelling solution for 3D videos with motion parallax and freedom from wearing headgear for 3D video perception. Optimising multi-view video for delivery and display could increase the demand for true 3D in the consumer market. This thesis focuses on an end-to-end quality optimisation in 3D video communication/transmission, offering solutions for optimisation at the compression, transmission, and decoder levels.Brunel University - Isambard Research Scholarshi

Economically sustainable public security and emergency network exploiting a broadband communications satellite

The research contributes to work in Rapid Deployment of a National Public Security and Emergency Communications Network using Communication Satellite Broadband. Although studies in Public Security Communication networks have examined the use of communications satellite as an integral part of the Communication Infrastructure, there has not been an in-depth design analysis of an optimized regional broadband-based communication satellite in relation to the envisaged service coverage area, with little or no terrestrial last-mile telecommunications infrastructure for delivery of satellite solutions, applications and services. As such, the research provides a case study of a Nigerian Public Safety Security Communications Pilot project deployed in regions of the African continent with inadequate terrestrial last mile infrastructure and thus requiring a robust regional Communications Satellite complemented with variants of terrestrial wireless technologies to bridge the digital hiatus as a short and medium term measure apart from other strategic needs. The research not only addresses the pivotal role of a secured integrated communications Public safety network for security agencies and emergency service organizations with its potential to foster efficient information symmetry amongst their operations including during emergency and crisis management in a timely manner but demonstrates a working model of how analogue spectrum meant for Push-to-Talk (PTT) services can be re-farmed and digitalized as a “dedicated” broadband-based public communications system. The network’s sustainability can be secured by using excess capacity for the strategic commercial telecommunication needs of the state and its citizens. Utilization of scarce spectrum has been deployed for Nigeria’s Cashless policy pilot project for financial and digital inclusion. This effectively drives the universal access goals, without exclusivity, in a continent, which still remains the least wired in the world

Three-dimensional media for mobile devices

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper aims at providing an overview of the core technologies enabling the delivery of 3-D Media to next-generation mobile devices. To succeed in the design of the corresponding system, a profound knowledge about the human visual system and the visual cues that form the perception of depth, combined with understanding of the user requirements for designing user experience for mobile 3-D media, are required. These aspects are addressed first and related with the critical parts of the generic system within a novel user-centered research framework. Next-generation mobile devices are characterized through their portable 3-D displays, as those are considered critical for enabling a genuine 3-D experience on mobiles. Quality of 3-D content is emphasized as the most important factor for the adoption of the new technology. Quality is characterized through the most typical, 3-D-specific visual artifacts on portable 3-D displays and through subjective tests addressing the acceptance and satisfaction of different 3-D video representation, coding, and transmission methods. An emphasis is put on 3-D video broadcast over digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) in order to illustrate the importance of the joint source-channel optimization of 3-D video for its efficient compression and robust transmission over error-prone channels. The comparative results obtained identify the best coding and transmission approaches and enlighten the interaction between video quality and depth perception along with the influence of the context of media use. Finally, the paper speculates on the role and place of 3-D multimedia mobile devices in the future internet continuum involving the users in cocreation and refining of rich 3-D media content

JTIT

kwartalni

Video Quality Prediction for Video over Wireless Access Networks (UMTS and WLAN)

Transmission of video content over wireless access networks (in particular, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and Third Generation Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (3G UMTS)) is growing exponentially and gaining popularity, and is predicted to expose new revenue streams for mobile network operators. However, the success of these video applications over wireless access networks very much depend on meeting the user’s Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Thus, it is highly desirable to be able to predict and, if appropriate, to control video quality to meet user’s QoS requirements. Video quality is affected by distortions caused by the encoder and the wireless access network. The impact of these distortions is content dependent, but this feature has not been widely used in existing video quality prediction models. The main aim of the project is the development of novel and efficient models for video quality prediction in a non-intrusive way for low bitrate and resolution videos and to demonstrate their application in QoS-driven adaptation schemes for mobile video streaming applications. This led to five main contributions of the thesis as follows:(1) A thorough understanding of the relationships between video quality, wireless access network (UMTS and WLAN) parameters (e.g. packet/block loss, mean burst length and link bandwidth), encoder parameters (e.g. sender bitrate, frame rate) and content type is provided. An understanding of the relationships and interactions between them and their impact on video quality is important as it provides a basis for the development of non-intrusive video quality prediction models.(2) A new content classification method was proposed based on statistical tools as content type was found to be the most important parameter. (3) Efficient regression-based and artificial neural network-based learning models were developed for video quality prediction over WLAN and UMTS access networks. The models are light weight (can be implemented in real time monitoring), provide a measure for user perceived quality, without time consuming subjective tests. The models have potential applications in several other areas, including QoS control and optimization in network planning and content provisioning for network/service providers.(4) The applications of the proposed regression-based models were investigated in (i) optimization of content provisioning and network resource utilization and (ii) A new fuzzy sender bitrate adaptation scheme was presented at the sender side over WLAN and UMTS access networks. (5) Finally, Internet-based subjective tests that captured distortions caused by the encoder and the wireless access network for different types of contents were designed. The database of subjective results has been made available to research community as there is a lack of subjective video quality assessment databases.Partially sponsored by EU FP7 ADAMANTIUM Project (EU Contract 214751

3D video transmission over LTE

This thesis presents a research work on quality of experience in 3D video transmission over LTE networks. The objective is to study the state-of-art of LTE and 3D video, described in the scientific literature, and to quantify the user quality of experience (QoE) during a simulated LTE transmission. The work will start by a study of the University of Wien “LTE-A System Simulator” and its capabilities. In addition, different scenarios with various users equipment (UEs) and base stations (eNodeBs) densities will be configured and simulated in order to obtain the frame-by-frame Block Error Rate (BLER) values experienced by different UEs. Once obtained, the Block Error Rate frames will be converted to packet level error traces, which will be used to introduce erasures and corruptions into the packetized 3D video bitstream. The corrupted encoded video stream will be decoded using an error-concealment capable video decoder and the decoded/recovered video quality (QoE) will be estimated based on the Structural Similarity Index of the recovered video. Finally, the QoE results for the different system configurations will allow classifying the severity of the QoE degradations due to transmission losses, through inferring the relationship between those system parameters and the achievable QoE.Esta dissertação apresenta um trabalho de investigação sobre a qualidade de experiência numa transmissão de vídeo 3D sobre redes LTE. O objectivo é estudar o estado-da-arte no que respeita a rede LTE e vídeo 3D, descrito na literatura científica, e obter a qualidade de experiência de usuário (QoE) durante uma simulação de transmissão LTE. O trabalho começará por um estudo do University of Wien “LTE-A System Simulator” e as suas capacidades. Para este efeito, vão ser configurados diferentes cenários com distintas densidades de utilizadores (UEs) e estações base (eNodeBs), com o fim de obter a taxa de erros do bloco (BLER) experimentada por diferentes utilizadores. Depois de obter esta taxa, as tramas da taxa de erros do bloco (BLER) serão convertidas em tramas de nível de erro de pacotes, que vão ser usadas para adicionar corrupções de bit em ficheiros de vídeo 3D. O fluxo de vídeo codificado e corrompido será descodificado usando um descodificador de vídeo e a qualidade do vídeo recuperado vai ser calculada com base no Índice de Similitude Estrutural. Finalmente, os resultados de QoE para as diferentes configurações do sistema permitirão classificar o nível das degradações de QoE devido a perdas de transmissão, por meio de inferir a relação entre os parâmetros do sistema e a QoE obtida.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

DVB-NGH: the Next Generation of Digital Broadcast Services to Handheld Devices

This paper reviews the main technical solutions adopted by the next-generation mobile broadcasting standard DVB-NGH, the handheld evolution of the second-generation digital terrestrial TV standard DVB-T2. The main new technical elements introduced with respect to DVB-T2 are: layered video coding with multiple physical layer pipes, time-frequency slicing, full support of an IP transport layer with a dedicated protocol stack, header compression mechanisms for both IP and MPEG-2 TS packets, new low-density parity check coding rates for the data path (down to 1/5), nonuniform constellations for 64 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and 256QAM, 4-D rotated constellations for Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), improved time interleaving in terms of zapping time, end-to-end latency and memory consumption, improved physical layer signaling in terms of robustness, capacity and overhead, a novel distributed multiple input single output transmit diversity scheme for single-frequency networks (SFNs), and efficient provisioning of local content in SFNs. All these technological solutions, together with the high performance of DVB-T2, make DVB-NGH a real next-generation mobile multimedia broadcasting technology. In fact, DVB-NGH can be regarded the first third-generation broadcasting system because it allows for the possibility of using multiple input multiple output antenna schemes to overcome the Shannon limit of single antenna wireless communications. Furthermore, DVB-NGH also allows the deployment of an optional satellite component forming a hybrid terrestrial-satellite network topology to improve the coverage in rural areas where the installation of terrestrial networks could be uneconomical.Gómez Barquero, D.; Douillard, C.; Moss, P.; Mignone, V. (2014). DVB-NGH: the Next Generation of Digital Broadcast Services to Handheld Devices. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 60(2):246-257. doi:10.1109/TBC.2014.2313073S24625760

Study of encapsulation and transport of 3DTV by satellite

The project was developed in EADS ASTRIUM Toulouse in the framework of the MUSCADE project with the latest technologies in 3DTV. Currently most of the research in satellite broadcasting field is focused in 3DTV transmission as the following of HDTV. MUSCADE is a European project funded by the 7th Framework Program whose objective is to demonstrate a complete multiview 3DTV live chain over wireline, wireless and satellite networks. This project aims to set up a satellite testbed to validate the 3D content format defined by MUSCADE in an emulated satellite environment. The document’s first chapter describes the environment where the internship has taken place and a brief overview of the EADS Company. After, a short description of the whole MUSCADE project can be found in section 5. This allows the reader to achieve a global vision of all the technological concepts involved in the project even if this internship is focused in satellite transmission. Section 6 describes the internship development. By means of conclusion, the new skills achieved, the knowledge applied and a professional and personal balance could be found at the end of this report.Ingeniería de TelecomunicaciónTelekomunikazio Ingeniaritz

Adaptive intra refresh for robust wireless multi-view video

This thesis was submitted for the award of PhD and was awarded by Brunel University LondonMobile wireless communication technology is a fast developing field and every day new mobile communication techniques and means are becoming available. In this thesis multi-view video (MVV) is also refers to as 3D video. Thus, the 3D video signals through wireless communication are shaping telecommunication industry and academia. However, wireless channels are prone to high level of bit and burst errors that largely deteriorate the quality of service (QoS). Noise along the wireless transmission path can introduce distortion or make a compressed bitstream lose vital information. The error caused by noise progressively spread to subsequent frames and among multiple views due to prediction. This error may compel the receiver to pause momentarily and wait for the subsequent INTRA picture to continue decoding. The pausing of video stream affects the user's Quality of Experience (QoE). Thus, an error resilience strategy is needed to protect the compressed bitstream against transmission errors. This thesis focuses on error resilience Adaptive Intra Refresh (AIR) technique. The AIR method is developed to make the compressed 3D video more robust to channel errors. The process involves periodic injection of Intra-coded macroblocks in a cyclic pattern using H.264/AVC standard. The algorithm takes into account individual features in each macroblock and the feedback information sent by the decoder about the channel condition in order to generate an MVV-AIR map. MVV-AIR map generation regulates the order of packets arrival and identifies the motion activities in each macroblock. Based on the level of motion activity contained in each macroblock, the MVV-AIR map classifies frames as high or low motion macroblocks. A proxy MVV-AIR transcoder is used to validate the efficiency of the generated MVV-AIR map. The MVV-AIR transcoding algorithm uses spatial and views downscaling scheme to convert from MVV to single view. Various experimental results indicate that the proposed error resilient MVV-AIR transcoder technique effectively improves the quality of reconstructed 3D video in wireless networks. A comparison of MVV-AIR transcoder algorithm with some traditional error resilience techniques demonstrates that MVV-AIR algorithm performs better in an error prone channel. Results of simulation revealed significant improvements in both objective and subjective qualities. No additional computational complexity emanates from the scheme while the QoS and QoE requirements are still fully met.Tertiary Institution Trust Fund (TETFund) of Nigeri

A comparison of the performance of prediction techniques in curtailing uplink transmission and energy requirements in mobile free-viewpoint video applications

The rapid deployment of multimedia services on mobile networks together with the increase in consumer demand for immersive entertainment have paved the way for innovative video representations. Amongst these new applications is free-viewpoint video (FVV), whereby a scene is captured by an array of cameras distributed around a site to allow the user to alter the viewing perspective on demand, creating a three-dimensional (3D) effect. The implementation on mobile infrastructures is however still hindered by intrinsic wireless limitations, such as bandwidth constraints and limited battery power. To this effect, this paper presents a solution that reduces the number of uplink requests performed by the mobile terminal through view prediction techniques. The implementation and performance of four distinct prediction algorithms in anticipating the next viewpoint request by a mobile user in a typical FVV system are compared and contrasted. Additionally, each solution removes the jitter experienced by the user whilst moving from a view pattern to another by allowing some hysterisis in the convergence signal. Thus, this technique enhances the performance of all the algorithms by taking into consideration the fact that the user adapts to the presented views and will react accordingly. Simulation results illustrate that an uplink transmission reduction of up to 96.7% can be achieved in a conventional FVV simulation scenario. Therefore, the application of prediction schemes can drastically reduce the mobile terminal’s power consumption and bandwidth resource requirements on the uplink channel.peer-reviewe