Design and evaluation of a DASH-compliant second screen video player for live events in mobile scenarios

The huge diffusion of mobile devices is rapidly changing the way multimedia content is consumed. Mobile devices are often used as a second screen, providing complementary information on the content shown on the primary screen, as different camera angles in case of a sport event. The introduction of multiple camera angles poses many challenges with respect to guaranteeing a high Quality of Experience to the end user, especially when the live aspect, different devices and highly variable network conditions typical of mobile environments come into play. Due to the ability of HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) protocols to dynamically adapt to bandwidth fluctuations, they are especially suited for the delivery of multimedia content in mobile environments. In HAS, each video is temporally segmented and stored in different quality levels. Rate adaptation heuristics, deployed at the video player, allow the most appropriate quality level to be dynamically requested, based on the current network conditions. Recently, a standardized solution has been proposed by the MPEG consortium, called Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). We present in this paper a DASH-compliant iOS video player designed to support research on rate adaptation heuristics for live second screen scenarios in mobile environments. The video player allows to monitor the battery consumption and CPU usage of the mobile device and to provide this information to the heuristic. Live and Video-on-Demand streaming scenarios and real-time multi-video switching are supported as well. Quantitative results based on real 3G traces are reported on how the developed prototype has been used to benchmark two existing heuristics and to analyse the main aspects affecting battery lifetime in mobile video streaming

Evaluation of H.265 Video Delivery Based on Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) Using Mobile Devices

MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) is a standard for HTTP streaming that allows interoperability between servers and clients from different vendors which is able to adjust the speed of video delivery to changing bandwidth. Today there is the latest H.265 video coding known as the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). This research implemented the delivery of the H.265 video through the method of Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) using mobile devices. The test was conducted by sending videos over 3G networks with GSM length video segment consists of 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 20 seconds. The video quality provided in this study consisted of 5 video levels with different bit rates. From the test results, the submitted videos using a smaller video segment generated greater throughput and acquired more video quality with a higher bit rate than the video to a larger segment. Video delivery with segment of 2 seconds acquired video quality with the highest level of 83%, meanwhile the video delivery segment of 20 seconds obtained video quality with the highest level of 33%

Provider-Controlled Bandwidth Management for HTTP-based Video Delivery

Over the past few years, a revolution in video delivery technology has taken place as mobile viewers and over-the-top (OTT) distribution paradigms have significantly changed the landscape of video delivery services. For decades, high quality video was only available in the home via linear television or physical media. Though Web-based services brought video to desktop and laptop computers, the dominance of proprietary delivery protocols and codecs inhibited research efforts. The recent emergence of HTTP adaptive streaming protocols has prompted a re-evaluation of legacy video delivery paradigms and introduced new questions as to the scalability and manageability of OTT video delivery. This dissertation addresses the question of how to enable for content and network service providers the ability to monitor and manage large numbers of HTTP adaptive streaming clients in an OTT environment. Our early work focused on demonstrating the viability of server-side pacing schemes to produce an HTTP-based streaming server. We also investigated the ability of client-side pacing schemes to work with both commodity HTTP servers and our HTTP streaming server. Continuing our client-side pacing research, we developed our own client-side data proxy architecture which was implemented on a variety of mobile devices and operating systems. We used the portable client architecture as a platform for investigating different rate adaptation schemes and algorithms. We then concentrated on evaluating the network impact of multiple adaptive bitrate clients competing for limited network resources, and developing schemes for enforcing fair access to network resources. The main contribution of this dissertation is the definition of segment-level client and network techniques for enforcing class of service (CoS) differentiation between OTT HTTP adaptive streaming clients. We developed a segment-level network proxy architecture which works transparently with adaptive bitrate clients through the use of segment replacement. We also defined a segment-level rate adaptation algorithm which uses download aborts to enforce CoS differentiation across distributed independent clients. The segment-level abstraction more accurately models application-network interactions and highlights the difference between segment-level and packet-level time scales. Our segment-level CoS enforcement techniques provide a foundation for creating scalable managed OTT video delivery services

An energy efficient http adaptive streaming protocol design for mobile hand-held devices

Internet traffic generated from mobile devices has experienced a huge growth in the last few years. With the increasing popularity of streaming applications in mobile devices, video traffic generated from mobile devices is also increasing. One of the big challenges of streaming applications on mobile devices is the energy intensive behaviour of such applications. Energy management has always been a critical issue for mobile devices. A wireless network interface consumes a significant portion of the total system energy while active. During video streaming, the network interface is kept awake for a long period of time. This causes a large energy drain. There are several research works focused on reducing energy consumption during video streaming on mobile devices. HTTP adaptive streaming is gaining popularity as a method of video delivery because of its significant advantages in terms of both user-perceived quality and resource utilization. By using rate adaptation via changes in the requested video version, it adapts to varying network available capacity. There are several research work that aim to increase the performance of rate adaptation. None of the previous works have focused on reducing energy consumption during HTTP adaptive streaming. In this thesis, an energy efficient HTTP adaptive streaming protocol is designed. The new protocol uses an efficient buffer management approach and a three step bitrate selection mechanism. The proposed protocol is implemented by modifying the Adobe OSMF player version 1.6. Performance evaluation of the new protocol is carried out by running a number of experiments in both a lab environment and three real world environments. The experimental results show that the proposed protocol is able to achieve high amounts of sleep time (by more than an estimated 70% for WiFi and more than 35% for 3G/EDGE) and reduce energy consumption during data transfer. It can also reduce data wastage by 80% in case of playback interruption in the video playback

Hybrid FLUTE/DASH video delivery over mobile wireless networks

This paper describes how FLUTE (File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport) and DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) can be used to provide mobile video streaming services over broadcast wireless networks. FLUTE is a multicast protocol for multimedia file download. In this proposal, the protocol is adapted to provide video streaming services in crowded environments. Thus, video is delivered over a single connection to all viewers, reducing the traffic in the network. FLUTE incorporates an AL-FEC (Application Layered Forward Error Correction) mechanism in order to improve the reliability of the broadcast communication channel. For streaming applications, AL-FEC improves the relationship between the PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) of the received video and the bandwidth allocated to the broadcast connection. The AL-FEC hereby presented applies simple unequal error protection schemes to favor the download of key frames. Furthermore, the proposal is based on the same video segmentation mechanism as DASH and therefore, clients can connect to a DASH repository to repair errors in the segments. This paper shows that FLUTE and DASH can be seamlessly integrated into a hybrid broadcast/unicast streaming technology, providing flexibility to trade off PSNR and bandwidth depending on the conditions of the mobile network.This work was supported by the 11012 ICARE (Innovative Cloud Architecture for Real Entertainment) project within the ITEA 2 Call 6 Program of the European Union.Belda Ortega, R.; De Fez Lava, I.; Fraile Gil, F.; Arce Vila, P.; Guerri Cebollada, JC. (2014). Hybrid FLUTE/DASH video delivery over mobile wireless networks. Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies. 25(11):1070-1082. doi:10.1002/ett.2804S107010822511ETSI TS 126 346 v11.3.0. Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS); LTE; Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS); Protocols and Codecs 2013Lecompte, D., & Gabin, F. (2012). Evolved multimedia broadcast/multicast service (eMBMS) in LTE-advanced: overview and Rel-11 enhancements. IEEE Communications Magazine, 50(11), 68-74. doi:10.1109/mcom.2012.6353684Stockhammer T Luby MG DASH in mobile networks and services. Presented at IEEE Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP) , 2012Seeling, P., & Reisslein, M. (2012). Video Transport Evaluation With H.264 Video Traces. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 14(4), 1142-1165. doi:10.1109/surv.2011.082911.00067Zhao, S., Tuninetti, D., Ansari, R., & Schonfeld, D. (2012). Multiple description coding over multiple correlated erasure channels. Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 23(6), 522-536. doi:10.1002/ett.2507Lin, C.-H., Wang, Y.-C., Shieh, C.-K., & Hwang, W.-S. (2012). An unequal error protection mechanism for video streaming over IEEE 802.11e WLANs. Computer Networks, 56(11), 2590-2599. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2012.04.004Paila T Walsh R Luby M Roca V Lehtonen R FLUTE - file delivery over unidirectional transport. 2012Luby M Watson M Vicisano L Asynchronous layered coding (ALC) protocol instantiation. 2010Ameigeiras, P., Ramos-Munoz, J. J., Navarro-Ortiz, J., & Lopez-Soler, J. M. (2012). Analysis and modelling of YouTube traffic. Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 23(4), 360-377. doi:10.1002/ett.2546ISO/IEC 23009-1. Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) - Part 1: media presentation description and segment formats 2012De Fez, I., Fraile, F., Belda, R., & Guerri, J. C. (2012). Analysis and Evaluation of Adaptive LDPC AL-FEC Codes for Content Download Services. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 14(3), 641-650. doi:10.1109/tmm.2012.2190392Jenkac, H., Stockhammer, T., & Wen Xu. (2006). Asynchronous and reliable on-demand media broadcast. IEEE Network, 20(2), 14-20. doi:10.1109/mnet.2006.1607891Neumann C Roca V Scalable video streaming over ALC (SVSoA): a solution for the large scale multicast distribution of videos. Presented at 1st Int. Workshop on SMDI , 2004Lederer S Müller C Timmerer C Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP dataset Proc. of the ACM Conference on Multimedia Systems (MMSys) 2012 89 94Blender Foundation webpage http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/Bai, H., & Atiquzzaman, M. (2003). Error modeling schemes for fading channels in wireless communications: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 5(2), 2-9. doi:10.1109/comst.2003.5341334Ohm, J.-R. (2004). Multimedia Communication Technology. Signals and Communication Technology. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-18750-

QoE-Assured 4K HTTP live streaming via transient segment holding at mobile edge

HTTP-based live streaming has become increasingly popular in recent years, and more users have started generating 4K live streams from their devices (e.g., mobile phones) through social-media service providers like Facebook or YouTube. If the audience is located far from a live stream source across the global Internet, TCP throughput becomes substantially suboptimal due to slow-start and congestion control mechanisms. This is especially the case when the end-to-end content delivery path involves radio access network (RAN) at the last mile. As a result, the data rate perceived by a mobile receiver may not meet the high requirement of 4K video streams, which causes deteriorated Quality-of-Experience (QoE). In this paper, we propose a scheme named Edge-based Transient Holding of Live sEgment (ETHLE), which addresses the issue above by performing context-aware transient holding of video segments at the mobile edge with virtualized content caching capability. Through holding the minimum number of live video segments at the mobile edge cache in a context-aware manner, the ETHLE scheme is able to achieve seamless 4K live streaming experiences across the global Internet by eliminating buffering and substantially reducing initial startup delay and live stream latency. It has been deployed as a virtual network function at an LTE-A network, and its performance has been evaluated using real live stream sources that are distributed around the world. The significance of this paper is that by leveraging on virtualized caching resources at the mobile edge, we have addressed the conventional transport-layer bottleneck and enabled QoE-assured Internet-wide live streaming to support the emerging live streaming services with high data rate requirements

On Providing Cloud-awareness to Client's DASH Application by Using DASH over HTTP/2, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2015, nr 4

Mobile Cloud Networks group together mobile users and clouds containing content servers. Hence, they are an ideal framework for media content delivery. Streams witching adaptive video players cope well with some limitations of Mobile Cloud Networks as low bandwidth and bandwidth variability in access network. Nonetheless, other limitations, as cloud congestion, are difficult to be managed by the video players. This paper presents a system for discovering fault situations at the cloud (e.g., cloud congestion) and notifying to the video player, which will take appropriate actions for saving the quality of media transmission. In proposed implementation the video application is DASH-capable and adaptation action may be both stream rate adaptation and content server adaptation. The communication between client and server uses \bidirectional" communication feature of HTTP/2 thanks to the new deployed modules running DASH over HTTP/2 in both client's and server's applications

Context-Aware Adaptive Prefetching for DASH Streaming over 5G Networks

The increasing consumption of video streams and the demand for higher-quality content drive the evolution of telecommunication networks and the development of new network accelerators to boost media delivery while optimizing network usage. Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) enables the possibility to enforce media delivery by deploying caching instances at the network edge, close to the Radio Access Network (RAN). Thus, the content can be prefetched and served from the MEC host, reducing network traffic and increasing the Quality of Service (QoS) and the Quality of Experience (QoE). This paper proposes a novel mechanism to prefetch Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) streams at the MEC, employing a Machine Learning (ML) classification model to select the media segments to prefetch. The model is trained with media session metrics to improve the forecasts with application layer information. The proposal is tested with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)' 5G MEC and RAN and compared with other strategies by assessing cache and player's performance metrics

Random Linear Network Coding for 5G Mobile Video Delivery

An exponential increase in mobile video delivery will continue with the demand for higher resolution, multi-view and large-scale multicast video services. Novel fifth generation (5G) 3GPP New Radio (NR) standard will bring a number of new opportunities for optimizing video delivery across both 5G core and radio access networks. One of the promising approaches for video quality adaptation, throughput enhancement and erasure protection is the use of packet-level random linear network coding (RLNC). In this review paper, we discuss the integration of RLNC into the 5G NR standard, building upon the ideas and opportunities identified in 4G LTE. We explicitly identify and discuss in detail novel 5G NR features that provide support for RLNC-based video delivery in 5G, thus pointing out to the promising avenues for future research.Comment: Invited paper for Special Issue "Network and Rateless Coding for Video Streaming" - MDPI Informatio