Abstract
While MPEG is the de facto encoding standard for video services, online video streaming service is becoming popular over the open network such as the Internet. As the performance of open network is non-predictable and uncontrollable, the tuning of the quality of service (QoS) for on-line video streaming services is difficult. In order to provide better QoS for the delivery of videos, there are proposals of new encoding formats or new transmission protocols for on-line video streaming. However, these results are not compatible with popular video players or network protocols and hence these approaches are so far not very successful. We use another approach which tries to by-pass these problems. We designed a QoS Tuning Scheme and a QoS-Enabled Transmission Scheme for transmitting MPEG videos from video servers to clients. According to the traffic characteristics between the video server and each individual client, the QoS Tuning Scheme tunes the QoS to be delivered to each individual client on the fly. Furthermore, our QoS-Enabled Transmission Scheme can be applied over any protocol, such as HTTP which is the most popular protocol over the open network. With our transmission scheme, bandwidth can be better utilized by reducing transmitted frames which would have missed their deadlines and would eventually be discarded by the clients. This is achieved by sending frames according to their impact on the QoS in the playback under the allowed throughput. With these schemes, users can enjoy video streaming through their favorite video players and with the best possible QoS. In order to facilitate the real time QoS tuning, a metric, QoS-GFS, is developed. This QoS-GFS is extended from the QoS-Index, another metric which has taken human perspective in the measurement of video quality. Hence QoS-GFS is better than the common metrics which measures QoS by means of rate of transmission of bytes or MPEG frames. We designed and implemented a middleware to perform empirical tests of the proposed transmission scheme and QoS tuning scheme. Experiment results show that our schemes can effectively enhance the QoS for online MPEG video streaming services.
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The work reported in this paper was supported in part by the RGC Earmarked Research Grant under RGC HKBU 2074/01E, and by the FRG under FRG 00-01/I.
Joseph Kee-Yin Ng received a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science, a M.Sc. in Computer Science, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the years 1986, 1988, and 1993, respectively. Dr. Ng is currently an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University.
His current research interests includes Real-Time Networks, Multimedia Communications, Ubiquitous/Pervasive Computing, Mobile and Location-aware Computing, Performance Evaluation, Parallel and Distributed Computing. Dr. Ng is the Technical Program Chair for TENCON 2006, General Chair for The 11th International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications (RTCSA 2005), Program Vice Chair for The 11th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS 2005), Program Area-Chair for The 18th & 19th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA 2004 & AINA 2005) and he had served as the General Co-Chair for The International Computer Congress 1999 & 2001 (ICC'99 & ICC'01), the Program Co-Chair for The Sixth International Conference on Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications (RTCSA'99) and the General Co-Chair for The 1999 and 2001 International Computer Science Conference (ICSC'99 & ICSC'01).
Dr. Ng is a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, Associate Editor of Real-Time Systems Journal and Journal of Mobile Multimedia. He is a guest editor of International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing for a special issue on Applications, Services, and Infrastructures for Wireless and Mobile Computing.
Dr. Ng is currently the Region 10 Coordinator for the Chapter Activities Board of the IEEE Computer Society, and is the Coordinator of the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitors Program (Asia/Pacific). He is a senior member of the IEEE and has been a member of the IEEE Computer Society since 1991. Dr. Ng has been an exco-member (1993–95), General Secretary (1995–1997), Vice-Chair (1997–1999), Chair (1999–2001) and is the immediate past Chairman of the IEEE, Hong Kong Section, Computer Chapter. Dr. Ng received the Certificate of Appreciation for Leadership and Service (2000–2001) from IEEE Region 10 and the IEEE Meritorious Service Award from IEEE Computer Society at 2004. He is also a member of the IEEE Communication Society, and ACM.
Karl R.P.H. Leung received his Ph.D. from The University of Hong Kong. He is currently a Principal Lecturer in the Department of Information and Communications Technology at the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE). He is the founder of the Compuware Software Testing Laboratory in the IVE with a donation from the Compuware Asia Pacific Co. Ltd. His research areas include: domain modeling, mission critical software engineering methodology, secure workflow systems, GSM-based location estimation, and QoS of MPEG streaming. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and IEEE Computer Society, and has held major office of the IEEE Hong Kong Section Computer Chapter. While he was the chairman in 1998, the Chapter won the IEEE Most Outstanding Computer Society Chapter Award. He is also a Chartered Engineer of Engineering Council (UK), a Chartered Information Systems Engineer of British Computer Society (UK), an Engineer of Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Registered Professional Engineer (Information) of Hong Kong Engineers Registration Board, and a member of ACM, BCS, ACS, HKIE and HKCS.
Calvin Kin Cheung Hui received a B.Sc. (First Class Honours) in Computer Science, and a M.Phil. degree in Computer Science from Hong Kong Baptist University in the years 1999, and 2002, respectively. Mr. Hui's research interests includes Real-Time Networks, VoD Systems, Video Streaming, Multimedia Communication, and Distributed Systems Performance Evaluation.
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Ng, J.KY., Leung, K.R.P.H. & Hui, C.KC. A QoS-Enabled Transmission Scheme for MPEG Video Streaming. Real-Time Syst 30, 217–256 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11241-005-1401-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11241-005-1401-1