40 Gbps Access for Metro networks: Implications in terms of Sustainability and Innovation from an LCA Perspective

In this work, the implications of new technologies, more specifically the new optical FTTH technologies, are studied both from the functional and non-functional perspectives. In particular, some direct impacts are listed in the form of abandoning non-functional technologies, such as micro-registration, which would be implicitly required for having a functioning operation before arrival the new high-bandwidth access technologies. It is shown that such abandonment of non-functional best practices, which are mainly at the management level of ICT, immediately results in additional consumption and environmental footprint, and also there is a chance that some other new innovations might be 'missed.' Therefore, unconstrained deployment of these access technologies is not aligned with a possible sustainable ICT picture, except if they are regulated. An approach to pricing the best practices, including both functional and non-functional technologies, is proposed in order to develop a regulation and policy framework for a sustainable broadband access.Comment: 10 pages, 6 Tables, 1 Figure. Accepted to be presented at the ICT4S'15 Conferenc

Optical network technologies for future digital cinema

Digital technology has transformed the information flow and support infrastructure for numerous application domains, such as cellular communications. Cinematography, traditionally, a film based medium, has embraced digital technology leading to innovative transformations in its work flow. Digital cinema supports transmission of high resolution content enabled by the latest advancements in optical communications and video compression. In this paper we provide a survey of the optical network technologies for supporting this bandwidth intensive traffic class. We also highlight the significance and benefits of the state of the art in optical technologies that support the digital cinema work flow

3D video coding and transmission

The capture, transmission, and display of 3D content has gained a lot of attention in the last few years. 3D multimedia content is no longer con fined to cinema theatres but is being transmitted using stereoscopic video over satellite, shared on Blu-RayTMdisks, or sent over Internet technologies. Stereoscopic displays are needed at the receiving end and the viewer needs to wear special glasses to present the two versions of the video to the human vision system that then generates the 3D illusion. To be more e ffective and improve the immersive experience, more views are acquired from a larger number of cameras and presented on di fferent displays, such as autostereoscopic and light field displays. These multiple views, combined with depth data, also allow enhanced user experiences and new forms of interaction with the 3D content from virtual viewpoints. This type of audiovisual information is represented by a huge amount of data that needs to be compressed and transmitted over bandwidth-limited channels. Part of the COST Action IC1105 \3D Content Creation, Coding and Transmission over Future Media Networks" (3DConTourNet) focuses on this research challenge.peer-reviewe

PEA265: Perceptual Assessment of Video Compression Artifacts

The most widely used video encoders share a common hybrid coding framework that includes block-based motion estimation/compensation and block-based transform coding. Despite their high coding efficiency, the encoded videos often exhibit visually annoying artifacts, denoted as Perceivable Encoding Artifacts (PEAs), which significantly degrade the visual Qualityof- Experience (QoE) of end users. To monitor and improve visual QoE, it is crucial to develop subjective and objective measures that can identify and quantify various types of PEAs. In this work, we make the first attempt to build a large-scale subjectlabelled database composed of H.265/HEVC compressed videos containing various PEAs. The database, namely the PEA265 database, includes 4 types of spatial PEAs (i.e. blurring, blocking, ringing and color bleeding) and 2 types of temporal PEAs (i.e. flickering and floating). Each containing at least 60,000 image or video patches with positive and negative labels. To objectively identify these PEAs, we train Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) using the PEA265 database. It appears that state-of-theart ResNeXt is capable of identifying each type of PEAs with high accuracy. Furthermore, we define PEA pattern and PEA intensity measures to quantify PEA levels of compressed video sequence. We believe that the PEA265 database and our findings will benefit the future development of video quality assessment methods and perceptually motivated video encoders.Comment: 10 pages,15 figures,4 table

Enhancing the broadcasted TV consumption experience with broadband omnidirectional video content

[EN] The current wide range of heterogeneous consumption devices and delivery technologies, offers the opportunity to provide related contents in order to enhance and enrich the TV consumption experience. This paper describes a solution to handle the delivery and synchronous consumption of traditional broadcast TV content and related broadband omnidirectional video content. The solution is intended to support both hybrid (broadcast/broadband) delivery technologies and has been designed to be compatible with the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard. In particular, some specifications of HbbTV, such as the use of global timestamps or discovery mechanisms, have been adopted. However, additional functionalities have been designed to achieve accurate synchronization and to support the playout of omnidirectional video content in current consumption devices. In order to prove that commercial hybrid environments could be immediately enhanced with this type of content, the proposed solution has been included in a testbed, and objectively and subjectively evaluated. Regarding the omnidirectional video content, the two most common types of projections are supported: equirectangular and cube map. The results of the objective assessment show that the playout of broadband delivered omnidirectional video content in companion devices can be accurately synchronized with the playout on TV of traditional broadcast 2D content. The results of the subjective assessment show the high interest of users in this type of new enriched and immersive experience that contributes to enhance their Quality of Experience (QoE) and engagement.This work was supported by the Generalitat Valenciana, Investigacion Competitiva Proyectos, through the Research and Development Program Grants for Research Groups to be Consolidated, under Grant AICO/2017/059 and Grant AICO/2017Marfil-Reguero, D.; Boronat, F.; López, J.; Vidal Meló, A. (2019). Enhancing the broadcasted TV consumption experience with broadband omnidirectional video content. IEEE Access. 7:171864-171883. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2956084S171864171883

Error and Congestion Resilient Video Streaming over Broadband Wireless

In this paper, error resilience is achieved by adaptive, application-layer rateless channel coding, which is used to protect H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC) codec data-partitioned videos. A packetization strategy is an effective tool to control error rates and, in the paper, source-coded data partitioning serves to allocate smaller packets to more important compressed video data. The scheme for doing this is applied to real-time streaming across a broadband wireless link. The advantages of rateless code rate adaptivity are then demonstrated in the paper. Because the data partitions of a video slice are each assigned to different network packets, in congestion-prone wireless networks the increased number of packets per slice and their size disparity may increase the packet loss rate from buffer overflows. As a form of congestion resilience, this paper recommends packet-size dependent scheduling as a relatively simple way of alleviating the buffer-overflow problem arising from data-partitioned packets. The paper also contributes an analysis of data partitioning and packet sizes as a prelude to considering scheduling regimes. The combination of adaptive channel coding and prioritized packetization for error resilience with packet-size dependent packet scheduling results in a robust streaming scheme specialized for broadband wireless and real-time streaming applications such as video conferencing, video telephony, and telemedicine

Implementation of 4kUHD HEVC-content transmission

The Internet of things (IoT) has received a great deal of attention in recent years, and is still being approached with a wide range of views. At the same time, video data now accounts for over half of the internet traffic. With the current availability of beyond high definition, it is worth understanding the performance effects, especially for real-time applications. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) aims to provide reduction in bandwidth utilisation while maintaining perceived video quality in comparison with its predecessor codecs. Its adoption aims to provide for areas such as television broadcast, multimedia streaming/storage, and mobile communications with significant improvements. Although there have been attempts at HEVC streaming, the literature/implementations offered do not take into consideration changes in the HEVC specifications. Beyond this point, it seems little research exists on real-time HEVC coded content live streaming. Our contribution fills this current gap in enabling compliant and real-time networked HEVC visual applications. This is done implementing a technique for real-time HEVC encapsulation in MPEG-2 Transmission Stream (MPEG-2 TS) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), thereby removing the need for multi-platform clients to receive and decode HEVC streams. It is taken further by evaluating the transmission of 4k UHDTV HEVC-coded content in a typical wireless environment using both computers and mobile devices, while considering well-known factors such as obstruction, interference and other unseen factors that affect the network performance and video quality. Our results suggest that 4kUHD can be streamed at 13.5 Mb/s, and can be delivered to multiple devices without loss in perceived quality

Performance analysis and application development of hybrid WiMAX-WiFi IP video surveillance systems

Traditional Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) analogue cameras installed in buildings and other areas of security interest necessitates the use of cable lines. However, analogue systems are limited by distance; and storing analogue data requires huge space or bandwidth. Wired systems are also prone to vandalism, they cannot be installed in a hostile terrain and in heritage sites, where cabling would distort original design. Currently, there is a paradigm shift towards wireless solutions (WiMAX, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G) to complement and in some cases replace the wired system. A wireless solution of the Fourth-Generation Surveillance System (4GSS) has been proposed in this thesis. It is a hybrid WiMAX-WiFi video surveillance system. The performance analysis of the hybrid WiMAX-WiFi is compared with the conventional WiMAX surveillance models. The video surveillance models and the algorithm that exploit the advantages of both WiMAX and Wi-Fi for scenarios of fixed and mobile wireless cameras have been proposed, simulated and compared with the mathematical/analytical models. The hybrid WiMAX-WiFi video surveillance model has been extended to include a Wireless Mesh configuration on the Wi-Fi part, to improve the scalability and reliability. A performance analysis for hybrid WiMAX-WiFi system with an appropriate Mobility model has been considered for the case of mobile cameras. A security software application for mobile smartphones that sends surveillance images to either local or remote servers has been developed. The developed software has been tested, evaluated and deployed in low bandwidth Wi-Fi wireless network environments. WiMAX is a wireless metropolitan access network technology that provides broadband services to the connected customers. Major modules and units of WiMAX include the Customer Provided Equipment (CPE), the Access Service Network (ASN) which consist one or more Base Stations (BS) and the Connectivity Service Network (CSN). Various interfaces exist between each unit and module. WiMAX is based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards. Wi-Fi, on the other hand, is a wireless access network operating in the local area network; and it is based on the IEEE 802.11 standards