Efficient algorithms for computation of the burstiness curve of video sources

The burstiness of a video source can be characterized by its burstiness curve. The burstiness curve is useful in the optimal allocation of resources to satisfy a desired quality of service for the video stream in a packet network. In this paper, we present deterministic algorithms for exact computation of the burstiness curve of a video source, for both elementary video streams and MPEG-2 Transport Streams. The algorithms exploit the piecewise linearity of the burstiness curve and compute only the points at which the slope of the burstiness curve changes. We also present approximate versions of these algorithms, which save computational effort by considering only a small number of candidate points at which the slope of the burstiness curve may change. The approximate algorithm was able to compute the burstiness curve of a 2-h long elementary video stream in approximately 10 s, as compared to over 6 h for the exact algorithm, with virtually no loss of accuracy in the computation. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms makes them suitable for quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning not only in off-line environments such as in video-on-demand (VoD) servers, but also in real-time applications such as in live TV distribution systems.     

Bus and Buffer Usage in In-Home Digital Networks: Applying the Dantzig–Wolfe Decomposition

In an in-home digital network several data streams (audio, video) may run simultaneously over a shared communication device, e.g. a bus. The burstiness of a data stream can be reduced by buffering data at the sending and receiving side, thereby allowing a lower bus share allocation for the stream. In this paper we present an algorithm that determines how much of the bus capacity and buffer space should be allocated to each stream, in order to have a feasible transmission schedule for each stream. Furthermore, the algorithm determines a transmission schedule for each stream, indicating how much data is transmitted over time. We model the problem as a linear program and apply a Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition such that the multiple-stream problem can be solved by repeatedly solving single-stream problems. For these single-stream problems we briefly describe efficient algorithms to solve them.     

无线多媒体传感器网络视频流区分服务多径Qos路由算法

无线多媒体传感器网络视频流传输需要提供多样性QoS保障,传统的无线传感器网络路由协议不能很好地保证多媒体视频流数据传输, 改进多径路由算法TPGF下一跳节点选择方法,提出一种适合视频流传输的区分服务多路径Qos路由算法DSMQRA。综合考虑各路径跳数与节点剩余能量情况,在源节点与汇聚节点间找到多条优化的节点不相交路径;采用区分服务机制,重点保护视频流关键帧,提高视频流传输质量。在NS2环境下与AODV、GPSR、TPGF等算法进行仿真对比分析,实验结果表明DSMQRA算法能够有效延长网络生存时间、降低丢包率、减小帧延时、图像峰值信噪比较高,更加适合无线多媒体传感器网络视频流数据传输。     

MPEG-2的传输流多路复用算法

为了有效地满足视频点播和充分利用网络带宽的需要，文中提出了一种实现MPEG-2传输流复用的方法，着重分析了视频音频同步、码率控制、PCR计算、缓冲区管理等关键技术的实现策略，在VC 6．0环境下进行了编程实现，并用分析软件对生成的传输流进行分析，结果表明输出传输流符合MPEG-2系统层标准。     

一种联合速率控制和缓冲管理的VBR视频鲁棒传输方法

In this paper we present an adaptive video transmission framework that integrates rate allocation and buffer control at the source with the playback adjustment mechanism at the receiver. A transmission rate is determined by a rate allocation algorithm which uses the program clock reference (PCR) embedded in the video streams to regulate the transmission rate in a refined way. The server side also maintains multiple buffers for packets of different importance levels to trade off random loss for controlled loss according to the source buffer size, the visual impact, and the playback deadline. An over-boundary playback adjustment mechanism based on proportional-integra (PI) controller is adopted at the receiver to maximize the visual quality of the displayed video according to the overall loss and the receiver buffer occupancy. The performance of our proposed framework is evaluated in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) in the simulations, and the simulation results demonstrate the improvement of the average PSNR values as well as the better quality of the decoded frames.     

一种适用于DVB Over IP的传输流传送方法

对DVB Over IP应用来说，如何传送用可变比特率（VBR）压缩的MPEG-2传输流格式的视频是一个重要的问题。其中以传统的恒定速率（CBR）方式传送VBR视频时，接收端需要较大的缓存和开始延时时间；而另一种新的采用PCR协助的恒定速率（PCBR）传送方式，则是以较高的传输速率和以牺牲码率的稳定性来减少缓存需求。为了平衡传输速率和接收端缓存需求，在PCBR基础上，提出了一种称为IPCBR的改进的视频流传送方法。通过实验证明，该新方法与传统的CBR传送方式相比，不仅可降低缓存需求，而且与PCBR方式相比，又具有较高的稳定性和带宽利用率，并克服了PCBR丢包率较高的问题。同时由于该算法特别针对DVB Over IP，具有较强的实用性。且有利于Internet TV业务拓展。     

基于主动抛弃的MPEG—2 TS流速率控制算法

在网络传输能力不足以实时传输MPEG-2码流时，接收端的图象恢复质量会因为在网络传送中不可避免的、随机的数据丢失而严重下降，为了解决这一问题，提出了一种基于主动抛弃的MPEG-2 TS流速率控制算法，即在原始码流输送到网络前，根据预测的网络传输阻塞状况，预先主动抛弃部分不太重要的数据，从而使实际输出码率与可用网络带宽匹配，以保护重要数据和改善接收端的图象恢复质量，并提高网络带宽的利用率，经实验测试证明，此算法简单、实用、有效、且接收端的图象恢复质量比任凭网络随机丢失的情况有明显改善。     

Content-aware rate allocation for efficient video streaming via dynamic network utility maximization

Nowadays it is vital to design robust mechanisms to provide QoS for multimedia applications as an integral part of the network traffic. The main goal of this paper is to provide an efficient rate control scheme to support content-aware video transmission mechanism with buffer underflow avoidance at the receiver in congested networks. Towards this, we introduce a content-aware time-varying utility function, in which the quality impact of video content is incorporated into its mathematical expression. Moreover, we analytically model the buffer requirements of video sources in two ways: first as constraints of the optimization problem to guarantee a minimum rate demand for each source, and second as a penalty function embedded as part of the objective function attempting to achieve the highest possible rate for each source. Then, using the proposed analytical model, we formulate a dynamic network utility maximization problem, which aims to maximize the aggregate hybrid objective function of sources subject to capacity and buffer constraints. Finally, using primal–dual method, we solve DNUM problem and propose a distributed algorithm called CA-DNUM that optimally allocates the shared bandwidth to video streams. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy and performance improvement of the proposed content-aware rate allocation algorithm for video sources in different scenarios.     

EPCRTT-based smoothing and multiplexing of VBR video traffic

Applying video smoothing techniques to real-time video transmission can significantly reduce the peak rate and rate variability of compressed video streams. Moreover, statistical multiplexing of the smoothed traffic can substantially improve network utilization. In this paper we propose a new smoothing scheme, which exploits statistical multiplexing gain that can be obtained after smoothing of individual video streams. We present a new bandwidth allocation algorithm that allows for responsive interactivity. The local re-smoothing algorithm is carried out using an iterative process. In the proposed scheme the smoothed video streams are divided into fixed intervals and then a new transmission schedule for each interval is calculated. The problem of applying an optimal transmission schedule for aggregated smoothing video streams is shown to be NP-hard problem. Partitioning the whole stream into sections enables parallel processing of the smoothing algorithm in real-time before transmission. This approach allows partial transmission of the multiplexed stream while smoothing other intervals. The simulation results show a significant reduction in peak rate and rate variability of the aggregated stream, compared to the non-smoothing case. Therefore the proposed scheme allows us to increase the number of simultanusally-served video streams.

Camera Network Calibration and Synchronization from Silhouettes in Archived Video

In this paper we present an automatic method for calibrating a network of cameras that works by analyzing only the motion of silhouettes in the multiple video streams. This is particularly useful for automatic reconstruction of a dynamic event using a camera network in a situation where pre-calibration of the cameras is impractical or even impossible. The key contribution of this work is a RANSAC-based algorithm that simultaneously computes the epipolar geometry and synchronization of a pair of cameras only from the motion of silhouettes in video. Our approach involves first independently computing the fundamental matrix and synchronization for multiple pairs of cameras in the network. In the next stage the calibration and synchronization for the complete network is recovered from the pairwise information. Finally, a visual-hull algorithm is used to reconstruct the shape of the dynamic object from its silhouettes in video. For unsynchronized video streams with sub-frame temporal offsets, we interpolate silhouettes between successive frames to get more accurate visual hulls. We show the effectiveness of our method by remotely calibrating several different indoor camera networks from archived video streams.     

视频流传输中的拥塞恢复研究

从拥塞恢复的角度,现有的拥塞控制方法存在一定的不足,主要表现在:丢包率不能很好地反应视频数据的重建质量,在链路中多码流时,码流间的公平性得不到很好的保证。针对这些方法的不足之处,提出了一种基于加权丢包率的分层速率控制方法。通过在NS环境进行实验,实验结果表明该方法在视频数据重建质量和码流之间的公平性上有很大优势。     

IP网络实时视频流的传输控制算法AVTC的研究

随着实时音视频流和多播应用的发展，越来越多的非TCP流将出现在IP网上，它们可能和TCP流不公平地竞争网络带宽．针对TFRC算法存在的一些缺陷、Rtt的计算以及具体的实现等问题进行了讨论，并提出了IP网的自适应实时视频传输控制算法AVTC(adaptive video transmission control)．在AVTC算法中，发送端通过从接收端得到当前网络的状态信息，从而估计得到比较合适的发送速率，并动态地调整发送端的发送速率以适合当前网络的状况．AVTC算法满足实时视频流传输的实时性要求以及与TCP流公平地分享带宽的TCP友好性要求．     

Constant bit rate network transmission of variable bit rate continuous media in Video-On-Demand servers

Multimedia computing is rapidly emerging as the next generation standard for human-computer interaction. One class of multimedia applications that has been gaining much attention is the real-time display of continuous media data such as video and audio, commonly known as Video-On-Demand (VOD) service. Although advances in computer and network technologies have made VOD service feasible, providing guaranteed quality, real-time video delivery still poses many technical challenges. One such challenge involves the transmission of continuous media traffic over high-speed networks.In this paper, we present an algorithm for determining the minimum buffer requirement for avoiding overflow or underflow at the client video display process, allowing the network scheduler at the VOD server to enforce a constant bit rate delivery of variable bit rate encoded continuous media. This strategy results in reduced congestion and cell loss at the network switch, and in simplified admission control parameters. Initial results indicate that buffer requirements for typical video streams range from 3.7 to 14.6 Megabytes, which is acceptable by today's multimedia PC standards. Further, we show that this approach increases the number of streams that can be multiplexed by a factor of 4.6 to 9.9 times when compared to peak and 90%-of-peak bandwidth allocation strategies.ECE Dept., Syracuse University, Syracuse, USACIS Dept., Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA     

Impact of video scheduling on bandwidth allocation for multiplexed MPEG streams

We present efficient schemes for scheduling the delivery of variable-bit-rate MPEG-compressed video with stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. Video scheduling is being used to improve bandwidth allocation at a video server that uses statistical multiplexing to aggregate video streams prior to transporting them over a network. A video stream is modeled using a traffic envelope that provides a deterministic time-varying bound on the bit rate. Because of the periodicity in which frame types in an MPEG stream are typically generated, a simple traffic envelope can be constructed using only five parameters. Using the traffic-envelope model, we show that video sources can be statistically multiplexed with an effective bandwidth that is often less than the source peak rate. Bandwidth gain is achieved without sacrificing the stringency of the requested QoS. The effective bandwidth depends on the arrangement of the multiplexed streams, which is a measure of the lag between the GOP periods of various streams. For homogeneous streams, we give an optimal scheduling scheme for video sources at a video-on-demand server that results in the minimum effective bandwidth. For heterogeneous sources, a sub-optimal scheduling scheme is given, which achieves acceptable bandwidth gain. Numerical examples based on traces of MPEG-coded movies are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of our schemes.     

Video loss recovery with FEC and stream replication

Packet loss is inevitable in video multicast. In this paper, we propose and study an effective feedback-free loss recovery scheme for layered video which combines forward error correction (FEC) and stream replication. In our scheme, the server multicasts the video in parallel with FEC packets and a number of replicated delayed (ReD) version of the stream. Receivers autonomously and dynamically join the FEC and ReD streams to repair their losses. On the server side, we analyze and optimize the number of replicated streams and FEC packets to meet a certain residual loss requirement (i.e., error after correction). On the receiver side, we analyze the optimal combination of FEC and ReD packets to minimize its loss. We also present a fast yet accurate approximation algorithm for receiver to make such decision. We show that FEC combined with merely one or two replicated streams can effectively reduce the residual error rate (by as much as 50%) as compared with pure FEC or replication alone. Both subjective and objective video measures confirm that our recovery scheme achieves much better visual quality.     

Relay-assisted hierarchical adaptation scheme for multi-user scalable video delivery to heterogeneous mobile devices

In multi-user video (MUV) delivery scenarios,the available resources of receiver devices,such as processing capability,link packet error rate (PER),and bandwidth,are usually different.We propose a relay-assisted hierarchical adaptation (RHA) scheme to maximize the total perceptual quality of all users when transmitting video streams coded via scalable video coding (SVC).First,MUV bitstreams are adaptively extracted under the constraints of network bandwidth and individual decoding capacity.Next,the relay links are introduced as substitutes of possible bad direct links for packets retransmissions.Approximately equal opportunity of transmission is allocated to each stream while the packets inside a stream are scheduled according to their priorities.The priorities are determined by the links states and packets loss distortions.Simulation results show that our RHA scheme has significant performance improvements compared with other schemes.     

基于节的分布式多媒体资源管理

分布式多媒体系统面临的最大挑战是支持稳定的连续媒体流和媒体流间同步，分布式多媒体资源管理模型是保证它们的关键，本文提出了一种基于节的资源分配和管理模型，在资源分配时，它通过建立媒体流的线程，Ｉ／Ｏ处理，缓冲区和网络处理的平衡方程，计算保证稳定的连续媒体所必需的资源，在资源管理时，它通过调整媒体流的速率达到媒体流间同步，本文还提出了一种实时的节资源请求方案，它能系统资源开销最小，最后给出了在交换式１     

A relaxing bandwidth smoothing schedule for transmitting prerecorded VBR video in periodic network

Minimizing the number of bandwidth changes of individual stream and enabling the transmission schedule flexible can benefit increasing the number of concurrent multiplexed streams in periodic network without degrading quality of video. However, minimum change bandwidth allocation (MCBA) only provides a fixed transmission schedule for given video and client buffer although it achieves the minimum number of rate changes and the minimum peak rate. So the MCBA schedule cannot be adjusted when multiple streams are multiplexed over a limited bandwidth shared link. In this paper, we propose a relaxing transmission schedule that provides a range of rates for each interval and preserves the minimum number of rate changes without increasing any rate. As a result, the individual schedule can be adjusted by network service to try to satisfy bandwidth constraint when the total required bandwidth of multiplexed streams exceeds the available network capacity. First, we underline that the key of MCBA is to segment video with making each linear trajectory as long as possible. Then we use linear separability and support vector machine under the classification model to compute the longest interval and the required rate, respectively. Due to our proposed decoupled form between segmentation and rate computation, finally, we construct the relaxing schedule bounded by the original MCBA rate and the minimum rate. The simulation using real MPEG4 and H.264 video traces confirms the philosophy and evaluates the relaxing performance of our proposed algorithm.     

Community Streaming With Interactive Visual Overlays: System and Optimization

Community streaming is an enhanced form of joint content viewing where a sense of community is reinforced by the addition of interactive visual overlays, controlled in real-time by viewers, on top of a shared video stream. As a concrete example, we describe a community video system called ECHO, where personalized avatars are overlaid on top of a real-time encoded video stream of an Internet game for multicast consumption. Recognizing that only the visual overlays are generated live, we propose schemes that encode and schedule the live and non-live portions of the overlaid video separately in order to exploit the difference in delay sensitivity of the two, leading to video streams that contain two sub-streams with different delay constraints. We show that, in the known channel case, a low complexity ldquoearliest deadline firstrdquo packet scheduling algorithm minimizes receiver buffer delay. We also analyze the case where multiple streams are multiplexed, which allows us to quantify the potential gains of allowing different delay constraints for different sub-streams. We show that a ldquowater fillingrdquo strategy maximizes the total number of streams that can be supported. Simulation results show that the bandwidth necessary to maintain low-latency for visual overlays is reduced by about 40% when our proposed sub-stream approach is used. For multiplexing of multiple streams, our approach can increase the number of supported streams (e.g., a 30% increase when around ten streams are multiplexed).     

A Design Framework for Multi-Resolution Video Servers

Video can be encoded into multiple-resolution format in nature. A multi-resolution or scalable video stream is a video sequence encoded such that subsets of the full resolution video bit stream can be decoded to recreate lower resolution video streams. Employing scalable video enables a video server to provide multiple resolution services for a variety of clients with different decoding capabilities and network bandwidths connected to the server. The inherent advantages of the multi-resolution video server include: heterogeneous client support, storage efficiency, adaptable service, and interactive operations support.For designing a video server, several issues should be dealt with under a unified framework including data placement/retrieval, buffer management, and admission control schemes for deterministic service guarantee. In this paper, we present a general framework for designing a large-scale multi-resolution video server. First, we propose a general multi-resolution video stream model which can be implemented by various scalable compression techniques. Second, given the proposed stream model, we devise a hybrid data placement scheme to store scalable video data across disks in the server. The scheme exploits both concurrency and parallelism offered by striping data across the disks and achieves the disk load balancing during any resolution video service. Next, the retrieval of multi-resolution video is described. The deterministic access property of the placement scheme permits the retrieval scheduling to be performed on each disk independently and to support interactive operations (e.g. pause, resume, slow playback, fastforward and rewind) simply by reconstructing the input parameters to the scheduler. We also present an efficient admission control algorithm which precisely estimates the actual disk workload for the given resolution services and hence permits the buffer requirement to be much smaller. The proposed schemes are verified through detailed simulation and implementation.