Design of a transport coding scheme for high-quality video over ATM networks

Caption title.Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-39).Supported by ARPA. F30602-92-C-0030 Supported by the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. DAAH04-95-1-0103V. Parthasarathy, J.W. Modestino and K.S. Vastola

Layer-based coding, smoothing, and scheduling of low-bit-rate video for teleconferencing over tactical ATM networks

This work investigates issues related to distribution of low bit rate video within the context of a teleconferencing application deployed over a tactical ATM network. The main objective is to develop mechanisms that support transmission of low bit rate video streams as a series of scalable layers that progressively improve quality. The hierarchical nature of the layered video stream is actively exploited along the transmission path from the sender to the recipients to facilitate transmission. A new layered coder design tailored to video teleconferencing in the tactical environment is proposed. Macroblocks selected due to scene motion are layered via subband decomposition using the fast Haar transform. A generalized layering scheme groups the subbands to form an arbitrary number of layers. As a layering scheme suitable for low motion video is unsuitable for static slides, the coder adapts the layering scheme to the video content. A suboptimal rate control mechanism that reduces the kappa dimensional rate distortion problem resulting from the use of multiple quantizers tailored to each layer to a 1 dimensional problem by creating a single rate distortion curve for the coder in terms of a suboptimal set of kappa dimensional quantizer vectors is investigated. Rate control is thus simplified into a table lookup of a codebook containing the suboptimal quantizer vectors. The rate controller is ideal for real time video and limits fluctuations in the bit stream with no corresponding visible fluctuations in perceptual quality. A traffic smoother prior to network entry is developed to increase queuing and scheduler efficiency. Three levels of smoothing are studied: frame, layer, and cell interarrival. Frame level smoothing occurs via rate control at the application. Interleaving and cell interarrival smoothing are accomplished using a leaky bucket mechanism inserted prior to the adaptation layer or within the adaptation layerhttp://www.archive.org/details/layerbasedcoding00parkLieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Efficient compression of motion compensated residuals

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

DYNAMIC RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR MULTIUSER VIDEO STREAMING

With the advancement of video compression technology and wide deployment of wired/wireless networks, there is an increasing demand of multiuser video communication services. A multiuser video transmission system should consider not only the reconstructed video quality in the individual-user level but also the service objectives among all users on the network level. There are many design challenges to support multiuser video communication services, such as fading channels, limited radio resources of wireless networks, heterogeneity of video content complexity, delay and decoding dependency constraints of video bitstreams, and mixed integer optimization. To overcome these challenges, a general strategy is to dynamically allocate resources according to the changing environments and requirements, so as to improve the overall system performance and ensure quality of service (QoS) for each user. In this dissertation, we address the aforementioned design challenges from a resource-allocation point of view and two aspects of system and algorithm designs, namely, a cross-layer design that jointly optimizes resource utilization from physical layer to application layer, and multiuser diversity that explores the source and channel heterogeneity among different users. We also address the impacts on systems caused by dynamic environment along time domain and consider the time-heterogeneity of video sources and time-varying characteristics of channel conditions. To achieve the desired service objectives, a general resource allocation framework is formulated in terms of constrained optimization problems to dynamically allocate resources and control the quality of multiple video bitstreams. Based on the design methodology of multiuser cross-layer optimization, we propose several systems to efficiently transmit multiple video streams, encoded by current and emerging video codecs, over major types of wireless networks such as 3G cellular system, Wireless Local Area Network, 4G cellular system, and future Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks. Owing to the integer nature of some system parameters, the formulated optimization problems are often integer or mixed integer programming problem and involve high computation to search the optimal solutions. Fast algorithms are proposed to provide real-time services. We demonstrate the advantages of dynamic and joint resource allocation for multiple video sources compared to static strategy. We also show the improvement of exploring diversity on frequency, time, and transmission path, and the benefits from multiuser cross-layer optimization

Robust and efficient video/image transmission

The Internet has become a primary medium for information transmission. The unreliability of channel conditions, limited channel bandwidth and explosive growth of information transmission requests, however, hinder its further development. Hence, research on robust and efficient delivery of video/image content is demanding nowadays. Three aspects of this task, error burst correction, efficient rate allocation and random error protection are investigated in this dissertation. A novel technique, called successive packing, is proposed for combating multi-dimensional (M-D) bursts of errors. A new concept of basis interleaving array is introduced. By combining different basis arrays, effective M-D interleaving can be realized. It has been shown that this algorithm can be implemented only once and yet optimal for a set of error bursts having different sizes for a given two-dimensional (2-D) array. To adapt to variable channel conditions, a novel rate allocation technique is proposed for FineGranular Scalability (FGS) coded video, in which real data based rate-distortion modeling is developed, constant quality constraint is adopted and sliding window approach is proposed to adapt to the variable channel conditions. By using the proposed technique, constant quality is realized among frames by solving a set of linear functions. Thus, significant computational simplification is achieved compared with the state-of-the-art techniques. The reduction of the overall distortion is obtained at the same time. To combat the random error during the transmission, an unequal error protection (UEP) method and a robust error-concealment strategy are proposed for scalable coded video bitstreams

Study and simulation of low rate video coding schemes

The semiannual report is included. Topics covered include communication, information science, data compression, remote sensing, color mapped images, robust coding scheme for packet video, recursively indexed differential pulse code modulation, image compression technique for use on token ring networks, and joint source/channel coder design

A Connection Admission Control Framework for UMTS based Satellite Systems.An Adaptive Admission Control algorithm with pre-emption control mechanism for unicast and multicast communications in satellite UMTS.

In recent years, there has been an exponential growth in the use of multimedia applications. A satellite system offers great potential for multimedia applications with its ability to broadcast and multicast a large amount of data over a very large area as compared to a terrestrial system. However, the limited transmission capacity along with the dynamically varying channel conditions impedes the delivery of good quality multimedia service in a satellite system which has resulted in research efforts for deriving efficient radio resource management techniques. This issue is addressed in this thesis, where the main emphasis is to design a CAC framework which maximizes the utilization of the scarce radio resources available in the satellite and at the same time increases the performance of the system for a UMTS based satellite system supporting unicast and multicast traffic. The design of the system architecture for a UMTS based satellite system is presented. Based on this architecture, a CAC framework is designed consisting of three different functionalities: the admission control procedure, the retune procedure and the pre-emption procedure. The joint use of these functionalities is proposed to allow the performance of the system to be maintained under congestion. Different algorithms are proposed for different functionalities; an adaptive admission control algorithm, a greedy retune algorithm and three pre-emption algorithms (Greedy, SubSetSum, and Fuzzy). A MATLAB simulation model is developed to study the performance of the proposed CAC framework. A GUI is created to provide the user with the flexibility to configure the system settings before starting a simulation. The configuration settings allow the system to be analysed under different conditions. The performance of the system is measured under different simulation settings such as enabling and disabling of the two functionalities of the CAC framework; retune procedure and the pre-emption procedure. The simulation results indicate the CAC framework as a whole with all the functionalities performs better than the other simulation settings

Quality of service technologies for multimedia applications in next generation networks

Next Generation Networks are constantly evolving towards solutions that allow the operator to provide advanced multimedia applications with QoS guarantees in heterogeneous, multi-domain and multi-services networks. Other than the unquestionable advantages inherent the ability to simultaneously handle traffic flows at different QoS levels, these architectures require management systems to efficiently perform quality guarantees and network resource utilization. These issues have been addressed in this thesis. DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DS-TE) has been considered as reference architecture for the deployment of the quality management systems. It represents the most advanced technology to accomplish either network scalability and service granularity goals. On the basis of DS-TE features, a methodology for traffic and network resource management has been defined. It provides some rules for QoS service characterization and allows to implement Traffic Engineering policies with a class-based approach. A set of basic parameters for quality evaluation has been defined, that are the Key Performance Indicators; some mathematical model to derive the statistical nature of traffic have been analyzed and an algorithm to improve the fulfillment of quality of service targets and to optimize network resource utilization. It is aimed at reducing the complexity inherent the setting of some of the key parameters in the NGN architectures. Multidomain scenarios with technologies different from DS-TE have been also evaluated, defining some methodologies for network interoperability. Simulations with Opnet Modeler confirmed the efficacy of the proposed system in computing network configurations with QoS targets. With regard to QoS performance at the application level, video streaming applications in wireless domains have been particularly addressed. A rate control algorithm to adjust the rate on a per-window basis has been defined, making use of a short-term prediction of the network delay to keep the probability of playback buffer starvation lower than a desired threshold during each window. Finally, a framework for mutual authentication in web applications has been proposed and evaluated. It integrates an IBA password technique with a challenge-response scheme based on a shared secret key for image scrambling. The wireless environment is mainly addressed by the proposed system, which tries to overcome the severe constraints on security, data transmission capability and user friendliness imposed by such environment

Scalable Multiple Description Coding and Distributed Video Streaming over 3G Mobile Networks

In this thesis, a novel Scalable Multiple Description Coding (SMDC) framework is proposed. To address the bandwidth fluctuation, packet loss and heterogeneity problems in the wireless networks and further enhance the error resilience tools in Moving Pictures Experts Group 4 (MPEG-4), the joint design of layered coding (LC) and multiple description coding (MDC) is explored. It leverages a proposed distributed multimedia delivery mobile network (D-MDMN) to provide path diversity to combat streaming video outage due to handoff in Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The corresponding intra-RAN (Radio Access Network) handoff and inter-RAN handoff procedures in D-MDMN are studied in details, which employ the principle of video stream re-establishing to replace the principle of data forwarding in UMTS. Furthermore, a new IP (Internet Protocol) Differentiated Services (DiffServ) video marking algorithm is proposed to support the unequal error protection (UEP) of LC components of SMDC. Performance evaluation is carried through simulation using OPNET Modeler 9. 0. Simulation results show that the proposed handoff procedures in D-MDMN have better performance in terms of handoff latency, end-to-end delay and handoff scalability than that in UMTS. Performance evaluation of our proposed IP DiffServ video marking algorithm is also undertaken, which shows that it is more suitable for video streaming in IP mobile networks compared with the previously proposed DiffServ video marking algorithm (DVMA)