Quality control scheme based on VBR characteristics for improving QoE of UHD streaming service

Abstract

Recently, the demand for UHD (Ultra High Definition) streaming service is increasing due to the increased availability of the broadband access and the spread of various smart devices. In order to improve QoE (Quality of Experience) in HTTP Adaptive Streaming, quality control schemes considering network bandwidth and buffer occupancy have been studied. The existing techniques adaptively adjust the quality by distinguishing the buffer state based on the predicted bandwidth and the fixed buffer threshold. However, unnecessary quality changes and playback interruptions occurs due to insufficient consideration of the characteristics of VBR (Variable Bit Rate) contents of video. In this paper, we propose a quality control scheme based on VBR content characteristics for QoE enhancement of UHD streaming service. The proposed scheme estimates the bandwidth by considering the characteristics of the segment and smoothens it based on the difference of the adaptability between the segments. Also, video quality is dynamically controlled by classifying quality control region based on buffer occupancy and bandwidth utilization. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can improve QoE by rapidly responding to bandwidth changes and minimizing unnecessary quality change and playback interruption.