Multipath transmission aware ABR algorithm for SVC HAS

Abstract

Adaptive video streaming over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is one of the most popular applications that have been used on the Internet in the last decade. In such applications, clients change the quality of the received video throughout the streaming session with respect to current network conditions. In these systems, the use of scalable coded video is one of the alternatives that can obtain video files encoded at different qualities. In this paper, we propose an adaptive bitrate (ABR) algorithm that aims to improve the quality of not only future segments but also the segments in the buffer. The quality of the already buffered segments is improved by downloading additional layers of the SVC-coded video, hence, preventing network resources from being wasted while increasing Quality of Experience (QoE). We use multiple paths between the server and the clients for transferring the video packets. In such systems, the ABR algorithm should determine which segment and layer should be requested from which path and when. The proposed ABR algorithm selects a group of segments to increase the quality of the buffered segments and for future segments, and selects paths for each segment in this group. Simulation results show that clients achieve higher QoE by using our approach when compared with conventional ABR algorithms. Furthermore, we show that using multiple paths cannot guarantee that QoE is maximized unless the end-system is aware of multipath transmission.