Power tradeoffs in mobile video transmission for smartphones

Abstract

In recent years, the popularity of smartphone devices has expanded their use to a plethora of applications. Smartphones are used for web browsing, gaming, general socializing, watching films or television, capturing still pictures or videos, and, of course, making voice and video calls. Mobile video streaming in smartphones is among the most popular applications. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most power-hungry and one that stretches the finite resources of a mobile device to the limit. Therefore, the quality of experience during a video session is critically dependent on the smartphone physical limitations like display size, battery capacity, transmission throughput, and processing capability. In this work, the power tradeoffs in mobile video transmission are examined. The display size and resolution along with the video quality and communication model are tested through extensive experimentation with four smartphones. The study reveals several interesting phenomena and tradeoffs. In particular, it highlights that the display size is the most important parameter that affects the average power consumption during a video session. The study also identifies situations where the display resolution affects less the power consumption than the communication technology. The conclusions from this study suggest preferred usage patterns as well as guidelines for users and developers.