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Analysis of YouTube’s traffic adaptation to dynamic environments

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Abstract

The popular Internet service, YouTube, has adopted by default the HyperText Markup Language version 5 (HTML5). With this adoption, YouTube has moved to Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) as Adaptive BitRate (ABR) video streaming technology. Furthermore, rate adaptation in DASH is solely receiver-driven. This issue motivates this work to make a deep analysis of YouTube’s particular DASH implementation. Firstly, this article provides a state of the art about DASH and adaptive streaming technology, and also YouTube traffic characterization related work. Secondly, this paper describes a new methodology and test-bed for YouTube’s DASH implementation traffic characterization and performance measurement. This methodology and test-bed do not make use of proxies and, moreover, they are able to cope with YouTube traffic redirections. Finally, a set of experimental results are provided, involving a dataset of 310 YouTube’s videos. The depicted results show a YouTube’s traffic pattern characterization and a discussion about allowed download bandwidth, YouTube’s consumed bitrate and quality of the video. Moreover, the obtained results are cross-validated with the analysis of HTTP requests performed by YouTube’s video player. The outcomes of this article are applicable in the field of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) management. This is valuable information for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), because QoS management based on assured download bandwidth can be used in order to provide a target end-user’s QoE when YouTube service is being consumed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ceit and Tecnun (University of Navarra), Paseo de Manuel Lardizabal, N° 15, 20018, San Sebastián, Spain

    Javier Añorga, Saioa Arrizabalaga, Beatriz Sedano, Jon Goya, Maykel Alonso-Arce & Jaizki Mendizabal

Authors
  1. Javier Añorga
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  2. Saioa Arrizabalaga
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  3. Beatriz Sedano
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  4. Jon Goya
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  5. Maykel Alonso-Arce
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  6. Jaizki Mendizabal
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Correspondence to Javier Añorga.

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Añorga, J., Arrizabalaga, S., Sedano, B. et al. Analysis of YouTube’s traffic adaptation to dynamic environments. Multimed Tools Appl 77, 7977–8000 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-017-4695-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-017-4695-9

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