Multimedia Transmission Research Articles

An effective sharing approach of selective video frames for secure multimedia transmission

An effective sharing approach of selective video frames for secure multimedia transmission

Sustainable development of multi-media communication path of broadcasting and hosting with a dynamic environment.

To enrich people's lifestyles at home, the research on the transmission path of new media broadcasting and hosting programs has become a hot topic. The traditional statistical regression model has low prediction accuracy and weak generalization ability on such issues. Therefore, we propose an improved comprehensive path planning algorithm based on an ant colony algorithm to search for the optimal path of the multi-media transmission for broadcasting and hosting programs in a dynamic environment. Firstly, we improve the bidirectional search strategy, optimize the probability transition and extend the early search scope. Then, we utilize the allocation strategy of the wolf to change the updating rules of the pheromone. Finally, we take the shortest process time for listeners to obtain the broadcast program as the optimization goal and construct a comprehensive evaluation model. We also solve the optimal parameters to improve the overall performance of our method for finding out the excellent path of multi-media transmission in a dynamic environment. Experiment results show that our method can achieve the optimal route plans and we can demonstrate that the path planned by the improved ant colony algorithm is more reasonable, which can effectively avoid the optimum local problem and shorten the solution.

Secure Real-Time Multimedia Data Transmission from Low-Cost UAVs with A Lightweight AES Encryption

In the context of real-time wireless multimedia transmission from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), equipped with microphone arrays and cameras, data security is crucial. Data security should be guaranteed from the acquisition onboard the drones to its delivery to the destination node or ground station. A real-time light-weight application-level Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm has been considered to be applied to multimedia data and supported by the single-board-computers mounted onboard the drones, with low computational power. The study shows that the main advances are related to the design of a streaming application in a transmission architecture for military counter-UAV scenarios that is effective, secure, quick, and trustworthy for audio and video data. A multiple synchronous key management is also newly experimented. The thorough experiments have confirmed the effective validity of the encryption and decryption processes, even in the presence of adverse radio spectrum conditions.

Cross Layer based Energy Aware and Packet Scheduling Algorithm for Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network

Video transmission using sensor networks plays a most significant role in industrial and surveillance applications. Multimedia transmission is also a challenging task in case of guaranteeing quality of service in conditions like limited bandwidth, high congestion, multi-hop routing, etc. Cross layer approach is carried out to handle multimedia transmission over sensor networks for improving network adaptivity. Cross layer based energy aware and packet scheduling algorithm is proposed here to reduce congestion ratio and to improve link quality between the routing nodes. Link quality estimation among nodes is done using Semi-Markov process. Node congestion rate is determined for identifying node’s data channel rate. Packet scheduling process determines the highly prioritized packets by using queue scheduler component thereby the active nodes are selected through link quality process and the packets are transmitted to sink based on prioritize level. Simulation analysis is carried out and the efficiency of the proposed mechanism is proved to be better while comparing with the conventional schemes.

Performance evaluation of a Wi-Fi-based multi-node network for distributed audio-visual sensors

The experimental research described in this manuscript proposes a complete network system for distributed multimedia acquisition by mobile remote nodes, streaming to a central unit, and centralized real-time processing of the collected signals. Particular attention is placed on the hardware structure of the system and on the research of the best network performances for an efficient and secure streaming. Specifically, these acoustic and video sensors, microphone arrays and video cameras respectively, can be employed in any robotic vehicles and systems, both mobile and fixed. The main objective is to intercept unidentified sources, like any kind of vehicles or robotic vehicles, drones, or people whose identity is not a-priory known whose instantaneous location and trajectory are also unknown. The proposed multimedia network infrastructure is analysed and studied in terms of efficiency and robustness, and experiments are conducted on the field to validate it. The hardware and software components of the system were developed using suitable technologies and multimedia transmission protocols to meet the requirements and constraints of computation performance, energy efficiency, and data transmission security.

Image Encryption using Convolutional Neural Network

The use of cryptography has become increasingly important in the transmission of multimedia, such as digital images, text, audio, and video, to ensure secrecy, integrity, confidentiality, and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. While Chaos-based cryptosystems are not yet standardized like AES, DES, RSA, they have emerged as an active area of research in recent years and can provide additional security when used with standard public key cryptosystems. This project aims to implement an effective image encryption approach using a Chaos-based cryptosystem to overcome differential attacks. The system involves dividing the original image into parts and repositioning them to form the first level of encryption. The encryption process starts with generating a one-dimensional sequence using a logistic map, which is then multiplied by the maximum pixel value and subjected to bit-by-bit operation. The result is used to encrypt the image, which can be decrypted using the same process in reverse.

Multimedia Data Secure Transmission: A Review

Encryption is a technique of encoding data so that they can only be recognized by authorized receivers. More interactive media information is communicated in the medical, business, and military fields because of the rapid advances in various multimedia transmission and networking technologies, which may contain sensitive information that must be kept hidden from public users. Advanced encryption standards (AES) and data encryption standards (DES) are widely used encryption algorithms for text data. However, they are not appropriate for video data. To ensure that this information cannot be accessed by attackers, the demand for efficient video-protection techniques has been raised. This article provides multimedia design requirements to maintain a secure multimedia system occupied with a threat model for detecting and ranking the potential risks facing a multimedia system. the risks exposed to multimedia security and their impacts on users are typically described according to the textual description and also an overview of the current state-of-the-art video-encryption schemes are presented and their performance parameters have been examined. The relationship between encryption algorithms and compression techniques is also discussed and various multimedia applications have been presented in this paper; Additionally, as the synchronisation of real-time continuous streams is necessary for the interchange of these streams in multimedia conferencing services, multiple synchronisation strategies have been given in this study along with video synchronisation challenges.

A Deep Reinforcement Learning Quality Optimization Framework for Multimedia Streaming over 5G Networks

Media applications are amongst the most demanding services. They require high amounts of network capacity as well as computational resources for synchronous high-quality audio–visual streaming. Recent technological advances in the domain of new generation networks, specifically network virtualization and Multiaccess Edge Computing (MEC) have unlocked the potential of the media industry. They enable high-quality media services through dynamic and efficient resource allocation taking advantage of the flexibility of the layered architecture offered by 5G. The presented work demonstrates the potential application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities for multimedia services deployment. The goal was targeted to optimize the Quality of Experience (QoE) of real-time video using dynamic predictions by means of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms. Specifically, it contains the initial design and test of a self-optimized cloud streaming proof-of-concept. The environment is implemented through a virtualized end-to-end architecture for multimedia transmission, capable of adapting streaming bitrate based on a set of actions. A prediction algorithm is trained through different state conditions (QoE, bitrate, encoding quality, and RAM usage) that serves the optimizer as the encoding values of the environment for action prediction. Optimization is applied by selecting the most suitable option from a set of actions. These consist of a collection of predefined network profiles with associated bitrates, which are validated by a list of reward functions. The optimizer is built employing the most prominent algorithms in the DRL family, with the use of two Neural Networks (NN), named Advantage Actor–Critic (A2C). As a result of its application, the ratio of good quality video segments increased from 65% to 90%. Furthermore, the number of image artifacts is reduced compared to standard sessions without applying intelligent optimization. From these achievements, the global QoE obtained is clearly better. These results, based on a simulated scenario, increase the interest in further research on the potential of applying intelligence to enhance the provisioning of media services under real conditions.

ProStream: Programmable Underwater IoT Network for Multimedia Streaming

Underwater Internet of Things (IoT) faces challenges, such as low data rate, high node mobility, high error probability, and propagation delay. Furthermore, underwater multimedia communication is more challenging, as it requires a high data rate and reliable delivery. The next-generation networking paradigm—software-defined network (SDN)—improves flexibility and virtualization through programmability. SDN increases resource utilization, simplifies management, and reduces operating costs. This article proposes ProStream, a reconfigurable SDN-based underwater multihop network for improved topology management, association control, and multimedia transmission. The proposed scheme considers a network with multiple access points (APs) and mobile relays and stations. The SDN controller places flow rules in the relays, and APs are placed as per the location of the nodes. Moreover, we present a programmable station for reducing Tx/Rx complexity in underwater networks. The stations or relays are triggered through programmability to notify their sleep time and current relays and AP for association and data transmission. We evaluate the proposed scheme first through simulation-based experimentation. We also develop a small-scale real testbed prototype of the proposed SDN. The performance results show significant improvement of performance in terms of latency, throughput, and packet delivery ratio.

A Path-Aware Scheduler for Air-to-Ground Multipath Multimedia Delivery in Real Time

In recent years, multipath techniques have been increasingly used in multimedia transmission because they offer desirable features such as higher throughput and greater reliability. In this work, we focus on the challenging scenario of real-time video streaming from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to a fixed ground control station over multiple wireless paths. We present the development of a lightweight scheduler that is able to dynamically select the paths to be used and determine the necessary redundancy rate to protect the multimedia stream. Our scheduler, implemented as a module of the GStreamer framework, can be deployed in real or simulated environments. The tests show that the proposed solution can target very low loss rates by dynamically adapting both the path selection and the redundancy rate to the variable path conditions, providing an improved performance level compared to other solutions.

Reinforcement Learning-Based MAC Protocol for Underwater Multimedia Sensor Networks

High propagation delay, high error probability, floating node mobility, and low data rates are the key challenges for Underwater Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (UMWSNs). In this article, we propose RL-MAC, a Reinforcement Learning (RL)–based Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for multimedia sensing in an Underwater Acoustic Network (UAN) environment. The proposed scheme uses Transmission Opportunity (TXOP) for relay nodes in a multi-hop network for improved efficiency concerning the mobility of the relays and sensor nodes. The access point (AP) and relay nodes calculate traffic demands from the initial contention of the sensor nodes. Our solution uses Q-learning to enhance the contention mechanism at the initial phase of multimedia transmission. Based on the traffic demands, RL-MAC allocates TXOP duration for the uplink multimedia reception. Further, the Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) and compression techniques are used for calculating the image quality at the receiver end and reducing the image at the destination, respectively. We implement a prototype of the proposed scheme over an off-the-shelf, low-cost hardware setup. Moreover, extensive simulation over NS-3 shows a significant packet delivery ratio and throughput compared with the existing state-of-the-art.

AquaStream: Multihop Multimedia Streaming Over Acoustic Channel in Severely Resource-Constrained IoT Networks

Robust and reliable communication systems, whether based on electromagnetic (EM) waves or light, fail to perform under water due to very high attenuation and changing visibility conditions. The present generation of systems designed for underwater communications relies mostly on acoustic waves, typically in the ultrasonic frequency range. In this work, we develop and evaluate a means of implementing underwater acoustic channel-based severely constrained IoT networks using low-cost, off-the-shelf, open hardware electronics and transducers, which can support direct communication between two nodes at a data rate of 2.4 kbps for over 65 m. These nodes can be deployed over much longer distances through multihop relay topologies. Furthermore, we evaluate the efficacy of our system toward supporting multimedia data transmission and even attempt multimedia streaming through our deployed underwater IoT network using video compression and reduced sampling of the video frames. We observe that the system successfully supports multihop network topologies and undertakes multimedia transmission by compromising the quality of the data. The system has a clear tradeoff between data quality, transmission range, and transmission delays.

Optimized software-defined multimedia framework: networking and computing resource management

Today, the multimedia over IP (MoIP) network has become a cost-effective and efficient alternative to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Free applications for multimedia transmission over the Internet have become increasingly popular, gaining considerable popularity around the world. This communication consists of two phases, i.e., signaling phase and media exchange phase. The SIP protocol is responsible for the MoIP network signaling to provide services such as VoIP, voice and video conferencing, video over demand (VoD), and instant messaging. This application layer protocol has been standardized by the IETF for initiating, managing, and tearing down multimedia sessions and has been widely used as the main signaling protocol on the Internet. The signaling and media are handled by SIP proxies and network switches, respectively. One of the most critical challenges in MoIP is the overloading of SIP proxies and network switches. Because of these challenges, a wide range of network users experiences a sharp drop in service quality. Overload occurs when there are not enough processing resources and memory to process all the messages due to the lack of proper routing. This study aims to model the routing problem in MoIP by providing a framework based on software-defined networking (SDN) technology and a convex mathematical programming model to prevent overload. The proposed framework is simulated and implemented using various scenarios and network topologies. The results show that throughput, latency, message retransmission rate, and resource consumption have improved using the proposed approach.

Communication Protocols and Technologies for Multimedia Transmission: A Comprehensive Study

The exponential growth in end-user demand for multimedia content has necessitated significant advancements in communication technologies and multimedia processing. This paper presents a comprehensive review of various multimedia communication systems, focusing on the techniques employed for processing multimedia content and ensuring seamless transmission. It examines various technologies and communication protocols used to transport multimedia material while also addressing the difficulties these technologies present. The goal is to satisfy the growing demands for multimedia communication that include high data rates, wide bandwidth, low latency, and increased Quality of Service (QoS).

A CR-5G network based on multi-user for various waveforms detection

The 5G network is promised to provide all the requirements surfacing from the speedily rising number of mobile phone users rather than huge amount of data transmission. Many 5G waveforms can be used by 5G network such as Filtered-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (F-OFDM), Universal Filtered Multi-Carrier (UFMC), or Filter Bank Multi-Carrier (FBMC) waveform. To effectively capitalize on the spectrum resources, Internet of Thing (IoT), and multimedia transmission, the Cooperative Spectrum Sensing (CSS) system is being extensively utilized by Cognitive Radio (CR). It is able to meet the requisite communication services, however, the conventional CSS systems have been designed to detect only single kind of 5G waveform and poor detection performance for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this paper, a hybrid filter based CSS system is proposed for detection of various 5G waveforms by multi-user. The proposed filter includes three cascaded stages: cosine filtering, Welch segmentation, and Hamming windowing. The proposed detection system is applied on different data such as various of waveforms and SNRs. The simulation results exhibit a significant detection performance for the parameters of less than zero dB of SNR, greater than 95% global detection probability, less than 1% global system error probability, and less than 1% global false alarm probability. In addition, the detection performance reveals that the proposed system is outperformed related works as shown in the comparison in terms of the previous parameters.

Multimedia Real-Time Transmission Protocol and Its Application in Video Transmission System

The aim is to provide corresponding quality of service (QoS) guarantee for real-time video data transmission. To ensure the high quality and smooth playback of video sequence at the receiving end, the design of multimedia transmission is made. In view of the shortcomings of selective frame loss, this paper adopts the active frame loss algorithm, which discards the nonkey frames according to the probability. With the increase of the frame loss rate at the transmitter, the proportion of decoded frames increases rapidly and reaches the maximum when the frame loss rate is 0.1. It is proved that active frame loss can control the bit rate more accurately to make full use of bandwidth resources and avoid the waste of bandwidth resources.

Error Concealment in the Density Field of a Spatiotemporal Image Sequence.

One of the most difficult challenges of multimedia transmission during the last two decades has been the retrieval of degraded or missing regions of images and videos while maintaining satisfactory perceptual accuracy. The objective is to retrieve lost data by using the similarity between frames. Usually, error concealment (EC) schemes depend on replacing incorrect data with data that are identical to the initial. This is possible because video contains a high degree of self-similarity. This research focuses on applying an EC approach in transform-domain video sequences. To conduct EC on films, they must first be translated to frames and then transformed using one of the available transformations into frequency-domain images. Using successive frames, it is possible to recover lost or incorrect data from images. Intra-coded frames (I-frames) may be used to recreate lost knowledge in predictive (P-frames) and bidirectional predictive frames (B-frames). I-frame knowledge that has been lost may be restored using previous intra-coded frames. The use of wavelet error concealment generated more precise results than the other techniques. In this study, it was discovered that covering faults in the density sector with wavelets produces more reliable results than the other techniques.

Confidentiality considerations: multimedia signals transmission over different wireless channels utilized efficient secured model

The confidentiality of highly-sensitive multimedia signals is considered in this paper, it can be enhanced by efficient secured model utilizing several-layer security algorithms. The hybrid data hiding and cryptographic techniques are merged for constructing secured model. The Least Significant Bit (LSB) data hiding steganography is utilized with a 2-D Logistic-based map (Model-I) and second Model-II involves data hiding merging within chaotic-Baker-based image encryption security techniques. ِPerformance analyzing and comparison have been presented utilizing various images for examining the applicability of the different proposed image security scenarios for securing wireless image transmission over noise-free, and noisy channels. Moreover, the proposed algorithms are applied for transmission over Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) channels, and their performance is evaluated under different conditions of fading environments with utilizing the powerful error control schemes in the case of SUI-3 model channel and randomizing the packet based on the encryption tools. An equalizer is used to mitigate the impact of composite fading. A multi-layer security model using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) steganography with chaotic Baker encryption is proposed to protect highly-sensitive text based data records. The results reveal that it can be used efficiently for protecting highly-sensitive text message and records (text-based data). The timing analysis and comparative study are considered with respect to the previous related works.

High-Efficiency Multihomed Multimedia Transmission in Wireless Sensors

For real-time video transmission in multimedia sensor networks, efficient and reliable communication is very important. However, under actual conditions, when the sensor transmits data to the sink node, the link between the sensor and the sink node usually becomes unstable due to bandwidth limitations and unstable transmission links. Unstable data transmission will affect the normal data transmission of sensor nodes, and even cause sensor nodes to fail to communicate with sink nodes. These problems make users who use multimedia sensor networks have a poor user experience. In order to solve these problems, a brand-new multi-homed multi-connection system was designed for wireless multimedia sensors, and a prototype system was implemented. Compared with the traditional single-homed connection mode, the system can maintain a more stable connection under the same bandwidth, memory and CPU resource constraints.

RGB Image Encryption through Cellular Automata, S-Box and the Lorenz System

The exponential growth in transmission of multimedia over the Internet and unsecured channels of communications is putting pressure on scientists and engineers to develop effective and efficient security schemes. In this paper, an image encryption scheme is proposed to help solve such a problem. The proposed scheme is implemented over three stages. The first stage makes use of Rule 30 cellular automata to generate the first encryption key. The second stage utilizes a well-tested S-box, whose design involves a transformation, modular inverses, and permutation. Finally, the third stage employs a solution of the Lorenz system to generate the second encryption key. The aggregate effect of this 3-stage process insures the application of Shannon’s confusion and diffusion properties of a cryptographic system and enhances the security and robustness of the resulting encrypted images. Specifically, the use of the PRNG bitstreams from both of the cellular automata and the Lorenz system, as keys, combined with the S-box, results in the needed non-linearity and complexity inherent in well-encrypted images, which is sufficient to frustrate attackers. Performance evaluation is carried out with statistical and sensitivity analyses, to check for and demonstrate the security and robustness of the proposed scheme. On testing the resulting encrypted Lena image, the proposed scheme results in an MSE value of 8923.03, a PSNR value of 8.625 dB, an information entropy of 7.999, NPCR value of 99.627, and UACI value of 33.46. The proposed scheme is shown to encrypt images at an average rate of 0.61 Mbps. A comparative study with counterpart image encryption schemes from the literature is also presented to showcase the superior performance of the proposed scheme.