Error resilient video transcoding for robust inter-network communications using GPRS

A novel fully comprehensive mobile video communications system is proposed in this paper. This system exploits the useful rate management features of the video transcoders and combines them with error resilience for transmissions of coded video streams over general packet radio service (GPRS) mobileaccess networks. The error-resilient video transcoding operation takes place at a centralized point, referred to as a video proxy, which provides the necessary output transmission rates with the required amount of robustness. With the use of this proposed algorithm, error resilience can be added to an already compressed video stream at an intermediate stage at the edge of two or more different networks through two resilience schemes, namely the adaptive intra refresh (AIR) and feedback control signaling (FCS) methods. Both resilience tools impose an output rate increase which can also be prevented with the proposed novel technique in this paper. Thus, an error-resilient video transcoding scheme is presented to give robust video outputs at near target transmission rates that only require the same number of GPRS timeslots as the nonresilient schemes. Moreover, an ultimate robustness is also accomplished with the combination of the two resilience algorithms at the video proxy. Extensive computer simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system

Audiovisual preservation strategies, data models and value-chains

This is a report on preservation strategies, models and value-chains for digital file-based audiovisual content. The report includes: (a)current and emerging value-chains and business-models for audiovisual preservation;(b) a comparison of preservation strategies for audiovisual content including their strengths and weaknesses, and(c) a review of current preservation metadata models, and requirements for extension to support audiovisual files

Cloud media video encoding:review and challenges

In recent years, Internet traffic patterns have been changing. Most of the traffic demand by end users is multimedia, in particular, video streaming accounts for over 53%. This demand has led to improved network infrastructures and computing architectures to meet the challenges of delivering these multimedia services while maintaining an adequate quality of experience. Focusing on the preparation and adequacy of multimedia content for broadcasting, Cloud and Edge Computing infrastructures have been and will be crucial to offer high and ultra-high definition multimedia content in live, real-time, or video-on-demand scenarios. For these reasons, this review paper presents a detailed study of research papers related to encoding and transcoding techniques in cloud computing environments. It begins by discussing the evolution of streaming and the importance of the encoding process, with a focus on the latest streaming methods and codecs. Then, it examines the role of cloud systems in multimedia environments and provides details on the cloud infrastructure for media scenarios. After doing a systematic literature review, we have been able to find 49 valid papers that meet the requirements specified in the research questions. Each paper has been analyzed and classified according to several criteria, besides to inspect their relevance. To conclude this review, we have identified and elaborated on several challenges and open research issues associated with the development of video codecs optimized for diverse factors within both cloud and edge architectures. Additionally, we have discussed emerging challenges in designing new cloud/edge architectures aimed at more efficient delivery of media traffic. This involves investigating ways to improve the overall performance, reliability, and resource utilization of architectures that support the transmission of multimedia content over both cloud and edge computing environments ensuring a good quality of experience for the final user

Study of a Framework For Video Streaming In Mobile Devices (AMoV and ESoV)

AMoV (adaptive mobile video streaming) and ESoV(efficient social video sharing) are the terms which are currently gaining the attention of variety of computer users and researchers. While enjoying the multimedia services like videos and images, the basic quandary faced by any individual is the progressive downloading or the buffering of the videos. As the researches are focusing on various technologies in said issue, very least focus is given on to the security issues present in these technologies. The basic idea behind this paper is to study and to survey the literature and to propose the security aspects in related field

Quality of experience-centric management of adaptive video streaming services : status and challenges

Video streaming applications currently dominate Internet traffic. Particularly, HTTP Adaptive Streaming ( HAS) has emerged as the dominant standard for streaming videos over the best-effort Internet, thanks to its capability of matching the video quality to the available network resources. In HAS, the video client is equipped with a heuristic that dynamically decides the most suitable quality to stream the content, based on information such as the perceived network bandwidth or the video player buffer status. The goal of this heuristic is to optimize the quality as perceived by the user, the so-called Quality of Experience (QoE). Despite the many advantages brought by the adaptive streaming principle, optimizing users' QoE is far from trivial. Current heuristics are still suboptimal when sudden bandwidth drops occur, especially in wireless environments, thus leading to freezes in the video playout, the main factor influencing users' QoE. This issue is aggravated in case of live events, where the player buffer has to be kept as small as possible in order to reduce the playout delay between the user and the live signal. In light of the above, in recent years, several works have been proposed with the aim of extending the classical purely client-based structure of adaptive video streaming, in order to fully optimize users' QoE. In this article, a survey is presented of research works on this topic together with a classification based on where the optimization takes place. This classification goes beyond client-based heuristics to investigate the usage of server-and network-assisted architectures and of new application and transport layer protocols. In addition, we outline the major challenges currently arising in the field of multimedia delivery, which are going to be of extreme relevance in future years

Performance evaluation of the TFD-capable dynamic QoS assurance of HD video streaming in well-dimensioned network

The Traffic Flow Description (TFD) option of the IP protocol is an experimental option, designed by the Authors and described by the IETF’s Internet Draft. This option was intended for signalling for QoS purposes. Knowledge about forthcoming traffic (such as the amount of data that will be transferred in a given period of time) is conveyed in the fields of the option between end-systems. TFD-capable routers on a path (or a multicast tree) between the sender and receiver(s) are able to read this information, process it and use it for bandwidth allocation. If the time horizons are short enough, bandwidth allocation will be performed dynamically. In the paper a performance evaluation of an HD video transmission QoS assured with the use of the TFD option is presented. The analysis was made for a variable number of video streams and a variable number of TCP flows that compete with the videos for the bandwidth of the shared link. Results show that the dynamic bandwidth allocation using the TFD option better assures the QoS of HD video than the classic solution, based on the RSVP protocol

Ubiquitous Information Systems (UBIS): A design research study of intelligent middleware and architecture

Ubiquitous information systems (UBIS) adapt current Information System thinking to explicitly differentiate technology between hardware devices and software components in relation to people and process. More recent ubiquitous computing approaches provide the means to link Web content and services to a number of mobile devices (evolving from earlier Palm Computers to more recent smart phones and ambient screens), adapting information to provide mobile business solutions. In general, these approaches focus on providing the means to improve specific information access and transcoding but not on how the information can be discovered and accessed on-the-fly. This paper explores how a number of investment banking systems can be re-used to provide the invisibility of pervasive access and uncover more effective architectural models for strategies of this type. A proof-of-concept intelligent middleware Web service is built to further test and explore how human-devices-application connections can be made sporadically and not limited to pre-configured access to specific applications and data

A cost-effective methodology applied to videoconference services over hybrid clouds

This paper tackles the optimization of applications in multi-provider hybrid cloud scenarios from an economic point of view. In these scenarios the great majority of solutions offer the automatic allocation of resources on different cloud providers based on their current prices. However our approach is intended to introduce a novel solution by making maximum use of divide and rule. This paper describes a methodology to create cost aware cloud applications that can be broken down into the three most important components in cloud infrastructures: computation, network and storage. A real videoconference system has been modified in order to evaluate this idea with both theoretical and empirical experiments. This system has become a widely used tool in several national and European projects for e-learning and collaboration purposes