Proxy caching for media streaming over the Internet

Streaming media has contributed to a significant amount of today's Internet traffic. Like conventional Web objects (e.g., HTML pages and images), media objects can benefit from proxy caching; but their unique features such as huge size and high bandwidth demand imply that conventional proxy caching strategies have to be substantially revised. This article discusses the critical issues and challenges of cache management for proxy-assisted media streaming. We survey, classify, and compare the state-of-the-art solutions. We also investigate advanced issues of combining multicast with caching, cooperating among proxies, and leveraging proxy caching in overlay networks.     

Scalable proxy caching of video under storage constraints

Proxy caching has been used to speed up Web browsing and reduce networking costs. In this paper, we study the extension of proxy caching techniques to streaming video applications. A trivial extension consists of storing complete video sequences in the cache. However, this may not be applicable in situations where the video objects are very large and proxy cache space is limited. We show that the approaches proposed in this paper (referred to as selective caching), where only a few frames are cached, can also contribute to significant improvements in the overall performance. In particular, we discuss two network environments for streaming video, namely, quality-of-service (QoS) networks and best-effort networks (Internet). For QoS networks, the video caching goal is to reduce the network bandwidth costs; for best-effort networks, the goal is to increase the robustness of continuous playback against poor network conditions (such as congestion, delay, and loss). Two different selective caching algorithms (SCQ and SCB) are proposed, one for each network scenario, to increase the relevant overall performance metric in each case, while requiring only a fraction of the video stream to be cached. The main contribution of our work is to provide algorithms that are efficient even when the buffer memory available at the client is limited. These algorithms are also scalable so that when changes in the environment occur it is possible, with low complexity, to modify the allocation of cache space to different video sequences.     

Optimal multicast smoothing of streaming video over the Internet

A set of applications such as Internet video broadcasts, corporate telecasts, and distance learning require the simultaneous streaming of video to a large population of viewers across the Internet. The high bandwidth requirements and the multi-timescale burstiness of compressed video make it a challenging problem to provision network resources for streaming multimedia. For such applications to become affordable and ubiquitous, it is necessary to develop scalable techniques to efficiently stream video to a large number of disparate clients across a heterogeneous Internet. In this paper, we propose to multicast smoothed video over an application-level overlay network of proxies, and to differentially cache the video at the intermediate nodes (proxies) in the distribution tree, in order to reduce the network bandwidth requirements of video dissemination. We formulate the multicast smoothing problem as an optimization problem, and develop an algorithm for computing the set of transmission schedules for the tree that minimize the peak rate and rate variability, given buffer constraints at different nodes in the tree. We also develop an algorithm to compute the minimum buffer allocation in the entire tree, such that feasible transmission to all the clients is possible, when the tree has heterogeneous rate constraints. We show through trace-driven simulations that substantial benefits are possible from multicast smoothing and differential caching, and that these gains can be realized even with modest proxy caches.     

Video streaming over P2P networks: Challenges and opportunities

A robust real-time video communication service over the Internet in a distributed manner is an important challenge, as it influences not only the current Internet structure but also the future Internet evolution. In this context, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks are playing an imperative position for providing efficient video transmission over the Internet. Recently, several P2P video transmission systems have been proposed for live video streaming services or video-on-demand services over the Internet. In this paper, we describe and discuss existing video streaming systems over P2P. Efficient (delay tolerant and intolerant) data sharing mechanisms in P2P and current video coding trends are elaborated in detail. Moreover, video streaming solutions (live and on-demand) over P2P from the perspective of tree-based and mesh-based systems are explained. Finally, the conclusion is drawn with key challenges and open issues related to video streaming over P2P.     

Adaptive video protection in large scale peer‐to‐peer video streaming over mobile wireless mesh networks

Because video streaming over mobile handheld devices has been of great interest, the necessity of introducing new methods with low implementation cost and scalable infrastructures is a strong demand of the service. In particular, these requirements are present in popular wireless networks such as wireless mesh networks (WMN). Peer‐to‐peer (P2P) networks promise an efficient scalable network infrastructure for video streaming over wired and wireless networks. Limited resources of the peers in P2P networks and high error rate in wireless channels make it more challenging to run P2P streaming applications over WMNs. Therefore, it is necessary to design efficient and improved error protection methods in P2P video streaming applications over WMNs. In this paper, we propose a new adaptive unequal video protection method specially intended for large scale P2P video streaming over mobile WMNs. Using this method, different frames have different priorities in receivers along the recovery process. Moreover, we precisely and completely evaluate different aspects related to frame protection in these networks using five important performance metrics including video distortion, late arrival distortion, end‐to‐end delay, overhead and initial start‐up delay. The results obtained from a precise simulation in OMNeT++ show that the proposed adaptive method significantly outperforms other solutions by providing better video quality on mobile wireless nodes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Peer-to-peer live video streaming on the internet: issues, existing approaches, and challenges [Peer-to-Peer Multimedia Streaming]

Live video streaming is perhaps the greatest unfulfilled promise of the Internet. There have been tremendous efforts in the design and experimentation of video-streaming systems in the past two decades; there have been no shortage of technical innovations, yet no single system has delivered the scale and service quality. The fundamental problem that throttles the large-scale deployment of Internet video streaming is the dissatisfaction end-users experience with performance. This is caused by a combination of many factors, such as the autonomous nature of the Internet, inherent instability, and lack of a service guarantee. This is further challenged by sustainable bandwidth and the stringent continuity requirements of streaming applications. Recent development of P2P-based streaming technology brings unprecedented new momentum to Internet video streaming, which has been shown to be cost-effective, scalable, and easy to deploy. This article reviews the state-of-the-art P2P live video-streaming technologies and their development from a historic perspective. Based on our earlier success with a large-scale P2P streaming system, Coolstreaming, we summarize the main innovations and discuss the key trade offs in the system design. We present our observations on the future development and offer a few insights for further discussion.     

Analysis of a large-scale VOD architecture for broadband operators: a P2P-based solution

VOD services distribution is gaining unprecedented interest from the consumer communication industry due to its growing success in both the Internet and residential broadband market. In this article we present a scalable VOD distribution architecture for broadband operators. The solution is based on a P2P streaming concept in which a VOD streaming session requested by a given STB is actually provisioned via a multisource streaming session. This solution has the advantage of scaling naturally with the number of STBs in the network. In this article we focus on efficiently translating the popularity distribution into content availability in the network. Different aspects related to this issue are analyzed and challenges highlighted.     

An empirical study on user access to entertainment streaming media

I. Introduction Streaming media has been widely used over the Internet in recent years. However, the growing use in streaming media, which generally has large size, can have a significant impact on the user perceived latency and network congestion. A popular approach to reduce the response time and backbone bandwidth consumption is to deploy proxy caches at the edge of the Internet. Due to the large size and different popularity for different part of the streaming video, it is not practical …     

Adaptation strategies for MGS scalable video streaming

An adaptive streaming framework consists of a video codec that can produce video encoded at a variety of rates, a transport protocol that supports an effective rate/congestion control mechanism, and an adaptation strategy in order to match the video source rate to the available network throughput. The main parameters of the adaptation strategy are encoder configuration, video extraction method, determination of video extraction rate, send rate control, retransmission of lost packets, decoder buffer status, and packetization method. This paper proposes optimal adaptation strategies, in terms of received video quality and used network resources, at the codec and network levels using a medium grain scalable (MGS) video codec and two transport protocols with built-in congestion control, TCP and DCCP. Key recommendations are presented to obtain the best results in adaptive video streaming using TCP or DCCP based on extensive experimental results over the Internet.     

Scalable 3D video streaming over P2P networks with playback length changeable chunk segmentation

3D video distribution over P2P networks has been thought as a promising way for 3D video entering home. The convergence of scalable 3D video coding and P2P streaming can provide diverse 3D experiences for heterogeneous clients with high distribution efficiencies. However, the conventional chunk segmentation and scheduling algorithms originally aiming at the non-scalable 2D video streaming are not very efficient for scalable 3D video streaming over P2P networks due to the particular data characteristics of scalable 3D video. Based on this motivation, this paper first presents a playback length changeable 3D video chunk segmentation (PLC3DCS) algorithm to provide different error resilience strengths to video and depth as well as layers with different importance levels in the 3D video transmission. Then, a hybrid-priority based chunk scheduling (HPS) algorithm is proposed to be tied in with the proposed chunk segmentation algorithm to further promote the overall 3D video P2P streaming performance. The simulation results show that the proposed PLC3DCS algorithm with the corresponding HPS can increase the success delivery rates of chunks with more important levels, and further improve the user’s quality of 3D experience.     

自适应流媒体技术在CDN中的应用研究

内容分发网络(CDN)面临多终端、多业务融合所带来的各种技术挑战,自适应流媒体技术是一种结合了流控和HTTP渐进式下载的分发技术,它能够自动适应网络带宽,为用户提供良好的视频播放体验。论述CDN平台承载自适应流媒体业务所面临的技术挑战,并提出相应的应用解决方案,提高用户的视频服务体验,满足不断发展的视频服务需求。     

Cross-layer architecture for scalable video transmission in wireless network

Multimedia applications such as video conference, digital video broadcasting (DVB), and streaming video and audio have been gaining popularity during last years and the trend has been to allocate these services more and more also on mobile users. The demand of quality of service (QoS) for multimedia raises huge challenges on the network design, not only concerning the physical bandwidth but also the protocol design and services. One of the goals for system design is to provide efficient solutions for adaptive multimedia transmission over different access networks in all-IP environment. The joint source and channel coding (JSCC/D) approach has already given promising results in optimizing multimedia transmission. However, in practice, arranging the required control mechanism and delivering the required side information through network and protocol stack have caused problems and quite often the impact of network has been neglected in studies. In this paper we propose efficient cross-layer communication methods and protocol architecture in order to transmit the control information and to optimize the multimedia transmission over wireless and wired IP networks. We also apply this architecture to the more specific case of streaming of scalable video streams. Scalable video coding has been an active research topic recently and it offers simple and flexible solutions for video transmission over heterogeneous networks to heterogeneous terminals. In addition it provides easy adaptation to varying transmission conditions. In this paper we illustrate how scalable video transmission can be improved with efficient use of the proposed cross-layer design, adaptation mechanisms and control information.     

Reducing Channel Capacity for Scalable Video Coding in a Distributed Network

In recent years, the development of multimedia devices has meant that a wider multimedia streaming service can be supported, and there are now many ways in which TV channels can communicate with different terminals. Generally, scalable video streaming is known to provide more efficient channel capacity than simulcast video streaming. Simulcast video streaming requires a large network bandwidth for all resolutions, but scalable video streaming needs only one flow for all resolutions. In previous research, scalable video streaming has been compared with simulcast video streaming for network channel capacity, in two user simulation environments. The simulation results show that the channel capacity of SVC is 16% to 20% smaller than AVC, but scalable video streaming is not efficient because of the limit of the present network framework. In this paper, we propose a new network framework with an SVC extractor. The proposed network framework shows a channel capacity 50% (maximum) lower than that found in previous research studies.     

An interoperable delivery framework for scalable media resources - seamless content delivery in the future mobile internet

In this article an interoperable framework for the delivery of scalable media resources (e.g., in the standardized scalable video coding format) is presented. The framework provides support for video on demand as well as multicast streaming, and performs efficient, generic, and interoperable adaptation of streamed content based on MPEG- 21 Digital Item Adaptation. The server as well as the clients of the streaming framework implement the MPEG Extensible Middleware and utilize the MPEG Query Format for querying the available media resources. The framework has been fully integrated into the VLC media player. The architecture for both VoD and multicast is presented in detail. Finally, a comparison in terms of performance of the generic MPEG-21 metadata-based adaptation approach to an SVC-specific adaptation approach is provided.     

Video delivery technologies for large-scale deployment of multimedia applications

Deployment of a large-scale multimedia streaming application requires an enormous amount of server and network resources. The simplest delivery technique allocates server resources for each specific request. This technique is very expensive and is not scalable to support a very large user community such as the Internet. Hence, the past decade has witnessed tremendous research efforts to facilitate cost-effective, large-scale deployment of multimedia streaming applications. In this paper, we describe three complementary research approaches: server transmission schemes using multicast, streaming strategies with application layer multicast, and proxy caching techniques. We discuss pros and cons of these technologies and provide our observations on current business solutions.     

基于OpenFlow的SVC流媒体时延自适应分级传输方法

针对当前互联网流媒体传输的时延敏感性问题,提出一种基于OpenFlow的SVC（scalable video coding,可分级视频编码）流媒体时延自适应分级传输方法,该方法有效结合SVC流媒体可分级和OpenFlow灵活可编程的特性,在网络带宽受限和链路拥塞的复杂网络环境下,通过构建基础层和增强层2个独立路由,实现了动态网络下SVC流媒体分级自适应高效传输。仿真结果表明,该方法在提升SVC流媒体传输效率和质量,改善用户体验方面有重要作用。     

A Novel End-to-End Architecture for H.264 Video Streaming over the Internet

In this paper we propose a novel end-to-end architecture for H.264 unicast video streaming over the Internet. The proposed video streaming architecture is based primarily on a new transport layer protocol, the stream control transmission protocol (SCTP). We show that the network-friendly specification of H.264, and the novel technical characteristics of SCTP, when coupled together are able to provide a highly adaptive and flexible system for unicast video streaming. More specifically, we develop algorithms that handle at the transport layer the following functions concerning video packet transmission: retransmission policy, packet prioritization, implicit receiver feedback. We combine the above algorithms with an R-D optimization strategy at the encoder, that provides more options when adapting to bandwidth variations. This combined optimization strategy leads to more options concerning the streaming parameters. Finally, with simulation results we prove that our system is capable of maintaining good perceptual quality and TCP-friendliness under various loss conditions. An early version of this paper appeared in CCNC 2004.     

内容中心网络中基于内容迁移的协作缓存机制

内容中心网络(CCN)是为了适应未来网络通信模式的转变,提供对可扩展和高效内容获取的原生支持而提出一种新型的网络体系架构,内容缓存机制是其研究的关键问题之一。现有机制在缓存节点的选择时往往过于集中,缓存负载分布严重不均,大大降低了网络资源利用率以及系统的缓存性能。该文提出一种基于缓存迁移的协作缓存机制,首先在缓存节点选择时考虑节点的中心性保证内容尽可能缓存在位置更重要的节点。同时,在缓存压力过大时,通过可用缓存空间大小、缓存替换率以及网络连接的稳定性等信息选择合适的邻居节点进行缓存内容的转移,充分利用邻居资源实现负载分担。仿真结果表明该机制能有效地改善缓存负载在节点上分布的均衡性,提高缓存命中率和缓存资源利用率并降低平均接入代价。