Video Stalling Research Articles

Video stalling identification for web live streaming under HTTP-FLV

Live broadcasts have become one of the most popular forms of entertainment. Quality of user Experience (QoE) is a vital quantitative criterion for evaluating user satisfaction while watching live broadcasts, and it is positively correlated with the increase in the income of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Video stalling identification plays a crucial role in the evaluation of QoE. However, encrypted live streaming hides video content, which makes identifying video stalling challenging. Existing studies primarily detect video stalling in a fixed time interval and focus on high-dimensional features. However, the capacity of the client byte buffer is dynamic, resulting in the stalling and non-stalling existing in a certain and fixed stalling time. In addition, the handling time of abundant features causes further latency. We propose Truncation of Dynamic Bytes and non-linear Integrated Modification based on Double Buffers (DB2) to identify video stalling under HTTP-FLV protocol in various network conditions and live types. We pull real-time video to get client buffer parameters and build a dynamic mapping based on the double buffer between network packets and the video playing states. This allows a more objective and precise evaluation of video stalling. We design a new network feature by creating a non-linear relationship between network packets and the client buffer. This is achieved by combining non-linear convergent distribution with basic traffic features. The feature is fed into a lightweight machine learning model to train the classifier, achieving low processing latency and high identification accuracy. The experimental results show that DB2 can achieve 98.91% stalling identification accuracy with 1.256 ms operation time in a mixture of live video types, outperforming state-of-the-art techniques.

Video stalling detection method

ISP providing network access services has a huge user group; therefore the competition between the ISP providers is extremely fierce. Under the situation that video occupies the most of network flow, providing high satisfaction network services for video users can effectively improve the competitiveness of ISP, in which video Stalling plays an important index. For protecting the privacy of users, most video websites use HTTPS as the application layer protocol for video transmission, so ISP could not get the playback of video users by parsing HTTP packets, and could not directly detect the video users. In this assay, a new method, protocol transport layer Video Stalling Detection Method based on HTTPS is proposed. This method can effectively match the YouTube, Youku, Letv, Tencent video and other major video sources of the stalling event.

Wireless Network Instabilities in the Wild: Measurement, Applications (Non)Resilience, and OS Remedy

While the bandwidth and latency improvement of both WiFi and cellular data networks in the past decades are plenty evident, the extent of signal strength fluctuation and network disruptions (unexpected switching or disconnections) experienced by mobile users in today’s network deployment remains less clear. This paper makes three contributions. First, we conduct the first extensive measurement of network disruptions and significant signal strength fluctuations (together denoted as network instabilities) experienced by 2000 smartphones in the wild. Our results show that network disruptions and signal strength fluctuations remains prevalent as we moved into the 4G era. Second, we study how well popular mobile apps today handle such network instabilities. Our results show that even some of the most popular mobile apps do not implement any disruption-tolerant mechanisms. Third, we present Janus, an intelligent interface management framework that exploits the multiple interfaces on a handset to transparently handle network disruptions and satisfy apps’ performance requirement. We have implemented a prototype of Janus and our evaluation using a set of popular apps shows that Janus can: 1) transparently and efficiently handle network disruptions; 2) reduce video stalls by 2.9 times and increase 31% of the time of good voice quality; 3) reduce traffic size by 26.4% and energy consumption by 16.3% compared to naive solutions.

PMS

Single-source HTTP adaptive streaming solutions (HAS) have become the de facto solutions to deliver live video over the Internet. By avoiding video stalling events that are mainly caused by the lack of throughput at client or at server side, HAS solutions increase the end users’ quality of experience (QoE). We propose to pragmatically extend HAS with our MS-Stream solution that simultaneously utilizes several servers. MS-Stream aims at offering high QoE for live content delivery by exploiting expanded bandwidth and link diversity in distributed heterogeneous infrastructures. By leveraging end users’ connectivity capacities, we further extend the QoE and scalability capabilities of our proposal by exposing a hybrid P2P/multisource live-streaming solution (P2P/MS-Stream (PMS)), achieving trade-offs between the system’s scale and the end users’ QoE. We propose a distributed quality adaptation algorithm run by every peer, along with a local optimization method of the usage of the server infrastructure made available. Large-scale evaluations conducted with 300 peers located in France permits validating our approach and algorithms over flash crowd events and allow us to conclude that PMS can reach the optimal trade-offs between QoE and system scale.

An optimized approach to video traffic splitting in heterogeneous wireless networks with energy and QoE considerations

Due to the exploding traffic demands with the ubiquitous anticipated spread of 5G and Internet of Things, research has been active to devise mechanisms for meeting these demands while maintaining high quality user experience. In support of this direction, 3GPP is working towards cellular/WiFi interworking in heterogeneous networks to boost throughput, capacity, coverage and quality of experience. However, the continuous use of multiple wireless interfaces will increase the system performance but at the expense of more energy. As a result, there is a need for a dynamic use of multiple interfaces to provide a balance between energy consumption, throughput and user experience. Previous work in this field has considered improving throughput and reducing energy consumption, but did not consider simultaneously quality of experience as perceived by the end user. In this work, we aim at devising real-time traffic splitting strategies between WiFi and cellular networks to maximize user experience, reduce delay, and balance the needed energy consumption. We develop solutions for cellular/WiFi network resource management using Lyapunov drift-plus-penalty optimization approach. We evaluate the proposed approach using parameters determined via experimental measurements from mobile devices, and using our own test bed implementation to provide an evaluation under realistic operation conditions. Results show the performance effectiveness of the proposed traffic splitting approach in terms of throughput, delay, queue stability, energy consumption and quality of user experience by monitoring the frequency and lengths of video stalls.

TCP video streaming and mobile networks: Not a love story, but better with context

The rise in popularity of TCP-based video streaming in recent years is unbroken. These streaming services not just operate on wired access lines but more and more specifically target users of mobile networks as well. Yet it still remains difficult to evaluate the performance of such streaming approaches in mobile networks. This is especially critical as mobile networks exhibit much more potential for undesirable interactions between the network protocol layers and control plane properties on one side and the protocols and strategies of the application layer on the other side, ultimately resulting in scenarios with bad QoE for video streaming.This paper aims to rectify this lack of knowledge and understanding in a multi-pronged approach as follows: The first contribution provides an easy means to investigate such interactions with a streaming simulation framework built on ns-3. In a second contribution three exemplary scenarios within this framework are investigated in order to uncover the nature of such interactions. The final undertaking attempts to unravel the issues of the mobility scenario using context information. Such information can be collected through crowdsensing and collaboratively processed in a Big Data approach. This results in a tailor-made analytical solution through the formulation of a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) that can prevent video stalling in this particular scenario.

Application-aware software-defined EPON access network

As bandwidth requirements of access networks continue to increase rapidly, especially due to the growth of streaming traffic, the need for resolving bandwidth contention among competing users and applications becomes more compelling. The proposed Software-Defined Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) architecture utilizes an application-level feedback from the client side (for video users) to the network through a Software-Defined-Network (SDN) controller to achieve better client-and-service-level differentiation in the downstream direction of an EPON access network Numerical results obtained from simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposed architecture with downstream resource allocation for video streaming applications considerably reduce video stalls and increase video buffer level at the client applications leading to better Quality of Experience (QoE) for users along with better client-and-service-level differentiation.

YouSlow

Adaptive bitrate (ABR) technologies are being widely used in today's popular HTTP-based video streaming such as YouTube and Netflix. Such a rate-switching algorithm embedded in a video player is designed to improve video quality-of-experience (QoE) by selecting an appropriate resolution based on the analysis of network conditions while the video is playing. However, a bad viewing experience is often caused by the video player having difficulty estimating transit or client-side network conditions accurately. In order to analyze the ABR streaming performance, we developed YouSlow, a web browser plug-in that can detect and report live buffer stalling events to our analysis tool. Currently, YouSlow has collected more than 20,000 of YouTube video stalling events over 40 countries.

Introduction. From Highbrow to Lowbrow: Studies of Indian B-grade cinema and beyond

Vilnius University Cardboard skulls decorating the book of the dead’s pink cover―the Necronomicon; intoxicated young ladies having a ‘kitty party’ then gang raping their male servant; secret agents 077 and 707 serving the nation; a shape-shifting monster’s head rotates 180 degrees while tracing a doomed bride in red and the list of similar images is far from exhaustive. The above mentioned aesthetical and narrative cinematic devises just happen to come from a variety of Indian films―usually ascribed to the ‘lower’ cinematic cultures and labeled as exploitative, B-grade or even ‘trash’ cinema. Often despised and ridiculed by academicians, critics, and the big budget film industries while at the same time enjoying vast popularity in smaller urban centers and towns, these Indian low budget films co-exist with Bollywood and other major industries―yet work by their own sets of rules and agendas. These films remain a part of the national as well as global film consumption, even if slightly overshadowed by the blockbuster or Arthouse cinemas. Despite the changing trends in India’s film productions and aesthetics, the low budget cinema retains its cult status throughout the country―and this is most evident while taking a stroll down the Grant Road in Mumbai, lined up with numerous video stalls and offering enormous amounts of cheaply produced ‘3 films in 1’ type of DVDs: the genre selection ranging from action (fight) to horror; from mythological to soft-core sex films.