Adaptive Streaming Algorithms Research Articles

A Framework for Meta-Learning in Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP

This work presents a framework with a taxonomy on meta-learning used in Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). With the increasing complexity of network conditions and user preferences, there is a need for efficient adaptation mechanisms in DASH to provide optimal quality of experience (QoE) for users. Meta-learning, or learning to learn, has emerged as a promising approach to enhance adaptive streaming algorithms in DASH by leveraging prior knowledge and experiences. The proposed framework provides a systematic and structured approach for applying meta-learning techniques in the context of DASH. It encompasses essential components, including data collection and preprocessing, meta-model architecture, meta-training, meta-testing, fine-tuning, and continuous improvement. The taxonomy within the framework categorizes various aspects of meta-learning in DASH, such as meta-learning approaches, components, objectives, and applications

Adaptive Streaming Algorithms and Network Protocols

Adaptive Streaming Algorithms and Network Protocols

Adaptive Segmentation of Streaming Sensor Data on Edge Devices.

Sensor data streams often represent signals/trajectories which are twice differentiable (e.g., to give a continuous velocity and acceleration), and this property must be reflected in their segmentation. An adaptive streaming algorithm for this problem is presented. It is based on the greedy look-ahead strategy and is built on the concept of a cubic splinelet. A characteristic feature of the proposed algorithm is the real-time simultaneous segmentation, smoothing, and compression of data streams. The segmentation quality is measured in terms of the signal approximation accuracy and the corresponding compression ratio. The numerical results show the relatively high compression ratios (from 135 to 208, i.e., compressed stream sizes up to 208 times smaller) combined with the approximation errors comparable to those obtained from the state-of-the-art global reference algorithm. The proposed algorithm can be applied to various domains, including online compression and/or smoothing of data streams coming from sensors, real-time IoT analytics, and embedded time-series databases.

Evaluation of objective video quality assessment methods on video sequences with different spatial and temporal activity encoded at different spatial resolutions

With the development of Video on Demand applications due to the availability of high-speed internet access, adaptive streaming algorithms have been developing and improving. The focus is on improving user’s Quality of Experience (QoE) and taking it into account as one of the parameters for the adaptation algorithm. Users often experience changing network conditions, so the goal is to ensure stable video playback with satisfying QoE level. Although subjective Video Quality Assessment (VQA) methods provide more accurate results regarding user’s QoE, objective VQA methods cost less and are less time-consuming. In this article, nine different objective VQA methods are compared on a large set of video sequences with various spatial and temporal activities. VQA methods used in this analysis are: Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), MultiScale Structural Similarity Index (MS-SSIM), Video Quality Metric (VQM), Mean Sum of Differences (DELTA), Mean Sum of Absolute Differences (MSAD), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Netflix Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (Netflix VMAF) and Visual Signal-to-Noise Ratio (VSNR). The video sequences used for testing purposes were encoded according to H.264/AVC with twelve different target coding bitrates, at three different spatial resolutions (resulting in a total of 190 sequences). In addition to objective quality assessment, subjective quality assessment was performed for these sequences. All results acquired by objective VQA methods have been compared with subjective Mean Opinion Score (MOS) results using Pearson Linear Correlation Coefficient (PLCC). Measurement results obtained on a large set of video sequences with different spatial resolutions show that VQA methods like SSIM and VQM correlate better with MOS results compared to PSNR, SSIM, VSNR, DELTA, MSE, VMAF and MSAD. However, the PLCC results for SSIM and VQM are too low (0.7799 and 0.7734, respectively), for the usage of these methods in streaming services instead of subjective testing. These results suggest that more efficient VQA methods should be developed to be used in streaming testing procedures as well as to support the video segmentation process. Furthermore, when comparing results obtained for different spatial resolutions, it can be concluded that the quality of video sequences encoded at lower spatial resolutions in cases of lower target coding bitrate is higher compared to the quality of video sequences encoded at higher spatial resolutions at the same target coding bitrate, particularly when video sequences with higher spatial and temporal information are used.

Post-Streaming Wastage Analysis – A Data Wastage Aware Framework in Mobile Video Streaming

Mobile video streaming is now ubiquitous among mobile users. This work investigates a less studied and yet significant problem in mobile video streaming – data wastage, i.e., some downloaded video data may not be played back but discarded by video players due to early departure or video skip, thus the bandwidth consumed in transferring them is wasted. Our measurements show that data wastage is significant in practice, e.g., 25.2 percent∼51.7 percent of video data downloaded are in fact wasted. Moreover, substantial data wastage exists not only in current commercial streaming platforms, but also in state-of-the-art adaptive streaming systems proposed in the literature. This work develops a new post-streaming wastage analysis (PSWA) framework to tackle this problem by converting existing adaptive streaming algorithms into data wastage aware versions. PSWA enables the streaming vendors to explicitly control the tradeoff between data wastage and quality-of-experience (QoE). Extensive evaluations show that PSWA can reduce data wastage significantly (e.g., 80 percent) without any adverse impact on QoE. Moreover, it has strong robustness to perform consistently across a wide range of networks. PSWA can be readily implemented into current streaming platforms, and thus offers a practical solution to data wastage for mobile streaming services.

Towards secure and network state aware bitrate adaptation at IoT edge

Video streaming is critical in IoT systems, enabling a variety of applications such as traffic monitoring and health caring. Traditional adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) algorithms mainly focus on improving Internet video streaming quality where network conditions are relatively stable. These approaches, however, suffer from performance degradation at IoT edge. In IoT systems, the wireless channels are prone to interference and malicious attacks, which significantly impacts Quality-of-Experience (QoE) for video streaming applications. In this paper, we propose a secure and network-state-aware solution, SASA, to address these challenges. We first study the buffer-level constraint when increasing bitrate. We then analyze the impact of throughput overestimation in bitrate decisions. Based on these results, SASA is designed to consist of both an offline and an online phase. In the offline phase, SASA precomputes the best configurations of ABR algorithms under various network conditions. In the online phase, SASA adopts an online Bayesian changepoint detection method to detect network changes and apply precomputed configurations to make bitrate decisions. We implement SASA and evaluate its performance using 429 real network traces. We show that the SASA outperforms state-of-the-art ABR algorithms such as RobustMPC and Oboe in the IoT environment through extensive experiments.

Look ahead to improve QoE in DASH streaming

When a video is encoded with constant quality, the resulting bitstream will have variable bitrate due to the inherent nature of the video encoding process. This paper proposes a video Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR) algorithm, called Look Ahead, which takes into account this bitrate variability in order to calculate, in real time, the appropriate quality level that minimizes the number of interruptions during the playback. The algorithm is based on the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) standard for on-demand video services. In fact, it has been implemented and integrated into ExoPlayer v2, the latest version of the library developed by Google to play DASH contents. The proposed algorithm is compared to the Müller and Segment Aware Rate Adaptation (SARA) algorithms as well as to the default ABR algorithm integrated into ExoPlayer. The comparison is carried out by using the most relevant parameters that affect the Quality of Experience (QoE) in video playback services, that is, number and duration of stalls, average quality of the video playback and number of representation switches. These parameters can be combined to define a QoE model. In this sense, this paper also proposes two new QoE models for the evaluation of ABR algorithms. One of them considers the bitrate of every segment of each representation, and the second is based on VMAF (Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion), a Video Quality Assessment (VQA) method developed by Netflix. The evaluations presented in the paper reflect: first, that Look Ahead outperforms the Müller, SARA and the ExoPlayer ABR algorithms in terms of number and duration of video playback stalls, with hardly decreasing the average video quality; and second, that the two QoE models proposed are more accurate than other similar models existing in the literature.

Ensemble Adaptive Streaming – A New Paradigm to Generate Streaming Algorithms via Specializations

Video streaming is now ubiquitous in the mobile Internet. This motivated intense research in adaptive streaming algorithms to tackle mobile networks' fluctuating conditions. Our investigations revealed that while existing algorithms can perform well in their intended operating environments, their performance can degrade substantially in other environments. This work tackles this challenge by developing a novel Ensemble Adaptive Streaming (EAS) paradigm to mobile video streaming. As opposed to designing a single streaming algorithm for all network conditions, we argue that different network conditions require different algorithms. We introduce the notion of network differentiators to segregate network conditions into different classes where each class has its own adaptation algorithm designed and optimized specifically for it. An EAS mobile streaming client then selects at runtime the matching adaptation algorithm using the same network differentiators on a per session basis for streaming. We show how EAS can be applied to existing machine-learning approaches to improve their performances. Moreover, to fully exploit EAS's potential we developed the first Genetic Programming approach to evolve adaptive streaming algorithms. The resultant EAS-GP algorithms not only outperformed state-of-the-art algorithms substantially, but also exhibited remarkable robustness over time, location, mobile operators, as well as quality-of-experience metrics.

Adaptive streaming algorithm based on reinforcement learning

As video streaming occupies a large part of the Internet traffic, and DASH gradually becomes the dominant standard for video transmission recent years, a lot of researches about client-side bitrate adaptive algorithms are constantly emerging.This paper mainly adopts the DRL(Deep Reinforcement learning) algorithm that combines Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning techniques to optimize the Quality of Experience (QoE) of DASH.This method learns to make decisions by observing the network environment and adjust the strategy to get more reward based on feedback,which doesn’t rely on pre-programmed models or assumptions about the environment. After experiments on the real network trace datasets, we can find that the algorithm this paper adopted can obtain higher quality of user experience than the existing researches.Moreover, the experimental results show that less buffer underflow occurs and smoother video playback is guaranteed.

EmuStream—An End-to-End Platform for Streaming Video Performance Measurement

Cord-cutting has spread like wildfire as streaming video become commonplace in the Internet. This motivated intensive research in adaptive video streaming to improve its quality-of-experience (QoE) in the presence of network quality variations. Much of the existing research either employed dummy video contents or open source videos for QoE evaluation which may not capture the full spectrum of characteristics of real-world contents. This work fills this gap by developing a novel EmuStream platform based on real-world contents to enable realistic experiments and evaluation of any adaptive streaming algorithm in any streaming platform. First, EmuStream offers the largest (700+ titles) publicly available video bitrate trace dataset derived from real-world video contents. Second, we developed a mathematical model based on the dataset which can generate bitrate trace data for arbitrary target bitrates without actual video encoding. Third, we developed a novel Virtual Video Generator (VVG) which can generate h.264/h.265-compliant virtual videos that share the same frame/segment sizes as the source videos to enable experiments mimicking the streaming of commercial video contents. Last but not least, we developed a novel Streaming Performance Meter (SPM) that can measure detailed frame-by-frame playback performance from a video recording of the streaming playback of a virtual video. By decoding the virtual video's specially-coded frames, SPM can determine the playback timing and bitrate selected for each frame for use in computing any desired QoE metric. This paper presents the EmuStream platform and validates the trace data estimation model and VVG/SPM tools via controlled experiments.

A Context-aware adaptive algorithm for ambient intelligence DASH at mobile edge computing

Adaptive streaming has recently emerged as a technology enabling high-quality streaming at various bitrates. One of the video streaming challenges remains in research topic nowadays that is choosing optimal segment base on network characteristics and streaming devices, such as network bandwidth, latency, the computational capacities of devices. Researchers have proposed many algorithms to overcome such issues within their predefined conditions. However, those proposed methods do not perform efficiently in the heterogeneous network today. Consequently, in this article, we present research on a context-aware adaptive algorithm for ambient intelligence dynamic adaptive employing mobile edge computing (MEC). Specifically, we apply deep learning in the adaptive algorithm which is installed at the MEC to assist clients in choosing the optimal streaming segments as well as reduce network latency. Furthermore, we apply the multilayer perceptron classifier with data obtained from various experiments of adaptive streaming algorithms then combine them in a general algorithm. In the analysis, we use network simulator NS3 as a tool to carry out the verification of our proposed method. As a result, the proposed research reduces network latency as well as improve quality streaming compared to existing approaches.

Post-Streaming Rate Analysis—A New Approach to Mobile Video Streaming with Predictable Performance

Fueled by the growth of 3G/4G mobile networks, mobile video streaming has become one of the main applications in the mobile Internet. Due to mobile networks’ inherent bandwidth fluctuations, the industry as well as researchers have developed many adaptive streaming algorithms to compensate for such fluctuations to improve streaming performance. Given the wide range of network settings, it is not surprising that existing algorithms can and do perform differently across different network and system conditions. This work breaks away from the conventional one-size-fits-all approach to designing adaptive streaming systems by developing a new framework called PSRA where past throughput trace data - captured as a by-product of streaming, are analyzed to construct a statistical model to automatically tune the adaptation algorithm for future streaming sessions according to the underlying network and system configurations. Compared to existing approaches, the PSRA-optimized streaming algorithm can achieve predictable, consistent, and controllable streaming performance across a wide-range of network and system configurations. Moreover, PSRA offers to service provider a new tool to precisely control the tradeoff between video quality and streaming performance. Results from extensive trace-driven simulations as well as experiments verified PSRA's performance under real-world mobile network and system configurations.

Traffic prediction methods for quality improvement of adaptive video

During the past years, adaptive video based on HTTP has become very popular. Streaming of the adaptive video relies heavily on an estimation of end-to-end network throughput, which can be challenging especially in mobile networks, where the capacity highly fluctuates. In this work, we propose to predict the network throughput using its past measurements. As the analysis shows, the network throughput forms a long range-dependent process; thus, for the throughput prediction, we apply a fractional ARIMA process and artificial neural networks. Our approach does not require any modifications to the network infrastructure or the TCP stack. The predictions are performed for data traces obtained from measurements of throughput of a real mobile network. As the experiment shows, the obtained traffic models are able to enhance the performance of an adaptive streaming algorithm. Compared to the throughput predictors employed in contemporary systems dedicated to adaptive video streaming, the proposed technique obtains better results when taking into account effectiveness of network capacity utilisation and stability of video play-out.

LAMB-DASH: a DASH-HEVC adaptive streaming algorithm in a sharing bandwidth environment for heterogeneous contents and dynamic connections in practice

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) offers media players the possibility to dynamically select the most appropriate bitrate according to the connectivity performance. A best-effort strategy to take instant decisions could dramatically damage the overall Quality of Experience (QoE) with re-buffering times, and potential image freezes along with quality fluctuations. This is more critical in environments where multiple clients share the available bandwidth. Here, clients compete for the best connectivity. To address this issue, we propose LAMB-DASH, an online algorithm that, based on the historical probability of the playout session, improves the Quality Level (QL) chunk Mean Opinion Score (c-MOS). LAMB-DASH is designed for heterogeneous contents and changeable connectivity performance. It removes the need to access a probability distribution to specific parameters and conditions in advance. This way, LAMB-DASH focuses on the fast response and on the reduced computing overhead to provide a universal bitrate selection criterion. This paper validates the proposed solution in a real environment which considers live and on-demand Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) and High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) services implemented on top of GStreamer clients.

Improving quality of adaptive video by traffic prediction with (F)ARIMA models

During the past years, adaptive video based on hypertext transfer protocol HTTP has become very popular. Streaming of the adaptive video relies heavily on an estimation of end-to-end network throughput, which can be challenging especially in mobile networks, where the capacity highly fluctuates. In this work, we propose to predict the network throughput using its past measurements. As the analysis shows, the network throughput forms a long range-dependent process, thus, for the throughput prediction we apply fractional ARIMA (FARIMA) model. Our approach does not require any modifications to the network infrastructure or the TCP stack. The predictions are performed for data traces obtained from measurements of throughput of a real mobile network. As the experiment shows, the obtained traffic model is able to enhance the performance of an adaptive streaming algorithm. Compared to the throughput predictors employed in contemporary systems dedicated to adaptive video streaming, the proposed technique obtains better results when taking into account effectiveness of network capacity utilisation and stability of video play-out.

A Fuzzy-Based Adaptive Streaming Algorithm for Reducing Entropy Rate of DASH Bitrate Fluctuation to Improve Mobile Quality of Service

Dynamic adaptive streaming over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an advanced technology in video streaming to deal with the uncertainty of network states. However, this technology has one drawback as the network states frequently and continuously change. The quality of a video streaming fluctuates along with the network changes, and it might reduce the quality of service. In recent years, many researchers have proposed several adaptive streaming algorithms to reduce such changes. However, these algorithms only consider the current state of a network. Thus, these algorithms might result in inaccurate estimates of a video quality in the near term. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method using fuzzy logic and a mathematics moving average technique, in order to reduce mobile video quality fluctuation in Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). First, we calculate the moving average of the bandwidth and buffer values for a given period. On the basis of differences between real and average values, we propose a fuzzy logic system to deduce the value of the video quality representation for the next request. In addition, we use the entropy rate of a bandwidth measurement sequence to measure the predictable/stabilization of our method. The experiment results show that our proposed method reduces video quality fluctuation as well as improves 40% of bandwidth utilization compared to existing methods.

Survey of Transportation of Adaptive Multimedia Streaming service in Internet

World Wide Web is the greatest boon towards the technological advancement of modern era. Using the benefits of Internet globally, anywhere and anytime, users can avail the benefits of accessing live and on demand video services. The streaming media systems such as YouTube, Netflix, and Apple Music are reining the multimedia world with frequent popularity among users. A key concern of quality perceived for video streaming applications over Internet is the Quality of Experience (QoE) that users go through. Due to changing network conditions, bit rate and initial delay and the multimedia file freezes or provide poor video quality to the end users, researchers across industry and academia are explored HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS), which split the video content into multiple segments and offer the clients at varying qualities. The video player at the client side plays a vital role in buffer management and choosing the appropriate bit rate for each such segment of video to be transmitted. A higher bit rate transmitted video pauses in between whereas, a lower bit rate video lacks in quality, requiring a tradeoff between them. The need of the hour was to adaptively varying the bit rate and video quality to match the transmission media conditions. Further, The main aim of this paper is to give an overview on the state of the art HAS techniques across multimedia and networking domains. A detailed survey was conducted to analyze challenges and solutions in adaptive streaming algorithms, QoE, network protocols, buffering and etc. It also focuses on various challenges on QoE influence factors in a fluctuating network condition, which are often ignored in present HAS methodologies. Furthermore, this survey will enable network and multimedia researchers a fair amount of understanding about the latest happenings of adaptive streaming and the necessary improvements that can be incorporated in future developments.

Speedily, efficient and adaptive streaming algorithms for real-time detection of flooding attacks

Speedily, efficient and adaptive streaming algorithms for real-time detection of flooding attacks

Analysis and modelling of traffic produced by adaptive HTTP-based video

The increase of HTTP-based video popularity causes that broadband and Internet service providers’ links transmit mainly multimedia content. Network planning, traffic engineering or congestion control requires an understanding of the statistical properties of network traffic; therefore, it is desirable to investigate the characteristic of traffic traces generated by systems which employ adaptive bit-rate streaming. Our first contribution is an investigation of traffic originating from 120 client-server pairs, situated in an emulated content distribution network, and multiplexed onto a single network link. We show that the structure of the traffic is distinct from the structure generated by the first and second generation of HTTP video systems, and furthermore, not similar to the structure of general Internet traffic. The obtained traffic exhibits negative and positive correlations, anti-persistence, and its distribution function is skewed to the right. Our second contribution is an approximation of the traffic by ARIMA/FARIMA processes blue and artificial neural networks. As we show, the obtained traffic models are able to enhance the performance of an adaptive streaming algorithm.

An Energy-Efficient HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming With Networking Cost Constraint Over Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

This paper presents a seamless high-quality HTTP adaptive streaming algorithm that considers wireless network conditions and the energy consumption of a mobile device with networking cost constraints over heterogeneous wireless networks . In the proposed algorithm, the requested video segments are concurrently delivered through multiple wireless networks to overcome the limitations of a single network. The segment quality level, number of requested segments, network inactive interval, and amount of requested data through each wireless network are determined adaptively in order to provide a seamless high-quality video with low energy consumption and networking cost constraints at the mobile device. The proposed algorithm is fully implemented in an Android-based mobile device and tested in an actual wireless network environment.