Adaptive Algorithm for Video Streaming over Wireless Networks

Video streaming is gaining popularity among mobile users. The latest mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are equipped with multiple wireless network interfaces. At the same time, accessing the Internet over public WiFi and 3G networks has become part of our everyday lives. However, streaming video in wireless environments is often subject to frequent periods of rebuffering and characterized by low picture quality. In particular, achieving smooth and quality-adaptive streaming of live video poses a big challenge in mobile scenarios. In order to maintain high video streaming quality while reducing the wireless service cost, in this paper, the optimal video streaming process with multiple links is formulated as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). To solve the MDP in real time, we propose an adaptive, best-action search algorithm to obtain a sub-optimal solution. To evaluate the performance of the proposed adaptation algorithm, we implemented a testbed using the Android mobile phone and the Scalable Video Coding (SVC) codec. Building on the observation that the subjective video experience on mobile devices decreases when quality changes are more frequent than every 1 to 2 seconds, we present a client-side scheduler that retrieves segments of several video encodings over heterogeneous network interfaces simultaneously. The results show that our scheduler reduces the video interruptions and achieves a higher and more stable average quality over multiple, truly heterogeneous wireless interfaces.

کلیدواژه ها:

DASH ، Markov decision process ، video streaming ، multiple links