Multiple Description Coding (MDC) was fi rst formulated by A. Gersho and H. Witsenhausen as a way to improve the robustness of telephony links to outages. Lots of studies have been done in this area up to now. Another application of MDC is the transmission of an image in diff erent descriptions. If because of the link outage during transmission, any one of the descriptions fails, the image could still be reconstructed with some quality at the decoder side. In video coding, inter prediction is a way to reduce temporal redundancy. From an information theoretical point of view, one can model inter prediction with Causal Video Coding (CVC). If because of link outage, we lose any I-frame, how can we reconstruct the corresponding P- or B-frames at the decoder? In this thesis, we are interested in answering this question and we call this scenario as causal video coding with possible loss of the fi rst encoded frame and we denote it by CVC-PL as PL stands for possible loss. In this thesis for the fi rst time, CVC-PL is investigated. Although, due to lack of time, we mostly study two-frame CVC-PL, we extend the problem to M-frame CVC-PL as well. To provide more insight into two-frame CVC-PL, we derive an outer-bound to the achievable rate-distortion sets to show that CVC-PL is a subset of the region combining CVC and peer-to-peer coding. In addition, we propose and prove a new achievable region to highlight the fact that two-frame CVC-PL could be viewed as MDC followed by CVC. Afterwards, we present the main theorem of this thesis, which is the minimum total rate of CVC-PL with two jointly Gaussian distributed sources, i.e. X1 and X2 with normalized correlation coeffi cient r, for di fferent distortion pro files (D1,D2,D3). Defi ning Dr = r^2(D1 -1) + 1, we show that for small D3, i.e. D3 < Dr +D2 -1, CVC-PL could be treated as CVC with two jointly Gaussian distributed sources; for large D3, i.e. D3 > DrD2/(Dr+D2-DrD2), CVC-PL could be treated as two parallel peer-to-peer networks with distortion constraints D1 and D2; and for the other cases of D3, the minimum total rate is 0.5 log (1+ ??)(D3+??)/ (Dr+?? )(D2+?? ) + 0.5 log Dr/(D1D3) where ??=D3-DrD2+r[(1-D1)(1-D2)(D3-Dr)(D3-D2)]^0.5/[Dr+D2-(D3+1) ] We also determine the optimal coding scheme which achieves the minimum total rate. We conclude the thesis by comparing the scenario of CVC-PL with two frames with a coding scheme, in which both of the sources are available at the encoders, i.e. distributed source coding versus centralized source coding. We show that for small D2 or large D3, the distributed source coding can perform as good as the centralized source coding. Finally, we talk about future work and extend and formulate the problem for M sources.

Ingeniero Civil Eléctrico / En tiempos modernos la envergadura del contenido multimedia avanza más rápido que el desarrollo de las tecnologías necesarias para su correcta difusión a través de la red. Es por esto que se hacen necesarios nuevos protocolos que sirvan como puente entre ambas entidades para así obtener un máximo de provecho del contenido a pesar de que la tecnología para distribuirlos aún no sea la adecuada. Es así, que dentro de las últimas tecnologías de compresión de video se encuentra Scalable Video Coding (SVC), la cual tiene por objetivo codi car distintas calidades en un único bitstream capaz de mostrar cualquiera de las calidades embebidas en éste según se reciba o no toda la información. En el caso de una conexión del tipo streaming, en donde es necesaria una uidez y delidad en ambos extremos, la tecnología SVC tiene un potencial muy grande respecto de descartar un mínimo de información para privilegiar la uidez de la transmisión. El software utilizado para la creación y manipulación de estos bitstreams SVC es Joint Scalable Video Model (JSVM). En este contexto, se desarrolla el algoritmo de deadline en Matlab, que omite informaci ón del video SVC de acuerdo a qué tan crítico sea el escenario de transmisión. En este escenario se considera la percepción de uidez del usuario como medida clave, por lo cual se prioriza mantener siempre una tasa de 30 fps a costa de una pérdida de calidad mínima. El algoritmo, omite información de acuerdo a qué tan lejos se esté de este deadline de 30 fps, si se está muy lejos, se omite información poco relevante, y si se está muy cerca, información más importante. Los resultados se contrastan con TCP y se evalúan para distintos valores de RTTs, cumpliendo totalmente el objetivo para valores menores a 150 ms que resultan en diferencias de hasta 20 s a favor del algoritmo de deadline al término de la transmisión. Esta mejora en tiempo de arribo no descarta información esencial y sólo degrada ligeramente la calidad del video en pos de mantener la tasa de 30fps. Por el contrario, en escenarios muy adversos de 300 ms en RTT, las omisiones son de gran envergadura y comprometen frames completos, en conjunto con una degradación generalizada del video y la aparición de artefactos en éste. Por tanto la propuesta cumple los objetivos en ambientes no muy adversos. Para toda la simulación se uso un video en movimiento de 352x288 y 150 frames de largo.

Le trafic vidéo a subi une augmentation fulgurante sur Internet ces dernières années. Pour pallier à cette importante demande de contenu vidéo, la technologie du streaming adaptatif sur HTTP est utilisée. Elle est devenue par ailleurs très populaire car elle a été adoptée par les différents acteurs du domaine de la vidéo streaming. C’est une technologie moins couteuse qui permet aux fournisseurs de contenu, la réutilisation des serveurs web et des caches déjà déployés. En plus, elle est exempt de tout blocage car elle traverse facilement les pare-feux et les translations d’adresses sur Internet. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une nouvelle méthode de vidéo streaming adaptatif appelé “Backward-Shifted Coding (BSC)”. Il se veut être une solution complémentaire au standard DASH, le streaming adaptatif et dynamique utilisant le protocole HTTP. Nous allons d’abord décrire ce qu’est la technologie BSC qui se base sur le codec (encodeur décodeur) à multi couches SVC, un algorithme de compression extensible ou évolutif. Nous détaillons aussi l’implémentation de BSC dans un environnement DASH. Ensuite,nous réalisons une évaluation analytique de BSC en utilisant des résultats standards de la théorie des files d’attente. Les résultats de cette analyse mathématique montrent que le protocole BSC permet de réduire considérablement le risque d’interruption de la vidéo pendant la lecture, ce dernier étant très pénalisant pour les utilisateurs. Ces résultats vont nous permettre de concevoir des algorithmes d’adaptation de qualité à la bande passante en vue d’améliorer l’expérience utilisateur. Ces algorithmes permettent d’améliorer la qualité de la vidéo même étant dans un environnement où le débit utilisateur est très instable.La dernière étape de la thèse consiste à la conception de stratégies de caching pour optimiser la transmission de contenu vidéo utilisant le codec SVC. En effet, dans le réseau, des serveurs de cache sont déployés dans le but de rapprocher le contenu vidéo auprès des utilisateurs pour réduire les délais de transmission et améliorer la qualité de la vidéo. Nous utilisons la programmation linéaire pour obtenir la solution optimale de caching afin de le comparer avec nos algorithmes proposés. Nous montrons que ces algorithmes augmentent la performance du système tout en permettant de décharger les liens de transmission du réseau cœur. / Due to the growth of video traffic over the Internet in recent years, HTTP AdaptiveStreaming (HAS) solution becomes the most popular streaming technology because ithas been succesfully adopted by the different actors in Internet video ecosystem. Itallows the service providers to use traditional stateless web servers and mobile edgecaches for streaming videos. Further, it allows users to access media content frombehind Firewalls and NATs.In this thesis we focus on the design of a novel video streaming delivery solutioncalled Backward-Shifted Coding (BSC), a complementary solution to Dynamic AdaptiveStreaming over HTTP (DASH), the standard version of HAS. We first describe theBackward-Shifted Coding scheme architecture based on the multi-layer Scalable VideoCoding (SVC). We also discuss the implementation of BSC protocol in DASH environment.Then, we perform the analytical evaluation of the Backward-Sihifted Codingusing results from queueing theory. The analytical results show that BSC considerablydecreases the video playback interruption which is the worst event that users can experienceduring the video session. Therefore, we design bitrate adaptation algorithms inorder to enhance the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the users in DASH/BSC system.The results of the proposed adaptation algorithms show that the flexibility of BSC allowsus to improve both the video quality and the variations of the quality during thestreaming session.Finally, we propose new caching policies to be used with video contents encodedusing SVC. Indeed, in DASH/BSC system, cache servers are deployed to make contentsclosed to the users in order to reduce network latency and improve user-perceived experience.We use Linear Programming to obtain optimal static cache composition tocompare with the results of our proposed algorithms. We show that these algorithmsincrease the system overall hit ratio and offload the backhaul links by decreasing thefetched content from the origin web servers.

Em dezembro de 2007, a partir da cidade de São Paulo, as transmissões de televisão digital terrestre e aberta tiveram início no Brasil. Um avanço significativo do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital (SBTVD) foi a adoção do padrão H.264/AVC e o formato de vídeo 1080i para a codificação de vídeo em alta definição. A adoção em larga escala de tecnologia de alta definição tem sido um processo observado em vários mercados do mundo, e novos formatos superiores ao 1080i já estão sendo discutidos e propostos. Tendo em vista o que será a próxima geração da televisão, centros de pesquisa, como o centro japonês da emissora NHK, investigam os fatores humanos determinantes para caracterizar o sistema que deverá ser o último passo em tecnologia de televisão 2D. Já nomeado de UHDTV, este sistema deve contemplar resolução de 7680 pontos horizontais por 4320 pontos verticais, além de outras características ainda em estudo. Ao mesmo tempo, o trabalho aqui apresentado discute as ferramentas de suporte da escalabilidade na codificação multimídia como forma de evolução gradual dos formatos de vídeo na radiodifusão. Especificamente este trabalho sistematiza as ferramentas de escalabilidade do padrão H.264/AVC tendo em vista a sua aplicação ao SBTVD. Neste sentido, são discutidas as possibilidades de evolução do sistema frente à escalabilidade e são apresentados levantamentos experimentais da atual ocupação do espectro na cidade de São Paulo, evidenciando a disponibilidade de taxa para expansões. São apresentados também resultados iniciais relativos à codificação SVC, que apontam objetivamente as vantagens da escalabilidade sobre o simulcast, evidenciando que esta técnica pode ser utilizada no SBTVD para prover novos formatos de vídeo, tendo como premissa a compatibilidade com os atuais receptores que suportam o formato 1080i. O trabalho apresenta contribuições teóricas e experimentais na direção de adoção da escalabilidade no SBTVD, apontando também possíveis trabalhos futuros que, se realizados, poderão confirmar a transmissão de formatos superiores de vídeo nos próximos anos no SBTVD. / On December 2007, starting from São Paulo city, the open digital terrestrial transmissions were launched in Brazil. A significant improvement of the Brazilian Digital TV System (SBTVD) was the adoption of the H.264/AVC standard supporting the 1080i video format for the high definition video coding. Wide adoption of high definition technology has been a process that can be observed in lots of countries, and new video formats, beyond 1080i have already been discussed and proposed. With both eyes in the next generation of TV, research centers like Japanese broadcaster NHK investigate human factors that should drive the system specifications of this one that may be the last step in terms of 2D television technology. Named UHDTV, the system may support 7680 horizontal dots per 4320 vertical dots in terms of resolution among other features. At the same time, the work exposed here discusses tools that support multimedia coding scalability as a way of gradually improving video formats for broadcast. This work specially deals with the H.264/AVC standard scalability tools, aiming their use within SBTVD. Therefore, the evolution of the system is discussed based on scalability and experimental results related to the digital TV spectral occupation in São Paulo city are analyzed, showing that there is enough exceeding bit rate available for future expansion. Initial results related to SVC coding are also shown, objectively indicating that video scalability is more advantageous than simulcast and that this technique can be used in SBTVD to provide new video formats, keeping compatibility with current receivers that only support 1080i format. This work presents theoretical and experimental contributions towards the adoption of SVC in the SBTVD, pointing out some future works that, if executed, could confirm the transmission of new video format in SBTVD in the next years.

Em dezembro de 2007, a partir da cidade de São Paulo, as transmissões de televisão digital terrestre e aberta tiveram início no Brasil. Um avanço significativo do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital (SBTVD) foi a adoção do padrão H.264/AVC e o formato de vídeo 1080i para a codificação de vídeo em alta definição. A adoção em larga escala de tecnologia de alta definição tem sido um processo observado em vários mercados do mundo, e novos formatos superiores ao 1080i já estão sendo discutidos e propostos. Tendo em vista o que será a próxima geração da televisão, centros de pesquisa, como o centro japonês da emissora NHK, investigam os fatores humanos determinantes para caracterizar o sistema que deverá ser o último passo em tecnologia de televisão 2D. Já nomeado de UHDTV, este sistema deve contemplar resolução de 7680 pontos horizontais por 4320 pontos verticais, além de outras características ainda em estudo. Ao mesmo tempo, o trabalho aqui apresentado discute as ferramentas de suporte da escalabilidade na codificação multimídia como forma de evolução gradual dos formatos de vídeo na radiodifusão. Especificamente este trabalho sistematiza as ferramentas de escalabilidade do padrão H.264/AVC tendo em vista a sua aplicação ao SBTVD. Neste sentido, são discutidas as possibilidades de evolução do sistema frente à escalabilidade e são apresentados levantamentos experimentais da atual ocupação do espectro na cidade de São Paulo, evidenciando a disponibilidade de taxa para expansões. São apresentados também resultados iniciais relativos à codificação SVC, que apontam objetivamente as vantagens da escalabilidade sobre o simulcast, evidenciando que esta técnica pode ser utilizada no SBTVD para prover novos formatos de vídeo, tendo como premissa a compatibilidade com os atuais receptores que suportam o formato 1080i. O trabalho apresenta contribuições teóricas e experimentais na direção de adoção da escalabilidade no SBTVD, apontando também possíveis trabalhos futuros que, se realizados, poderão confirmar a transmissão de formatos superiores de vídeo nos próximos anos no SBTVD. / On December 2007, starting from São Paulo city, the open digital terrestrial transmissions were launched in Brazil. A significant improvement of the Brazilian Digital TV System (SBTVD) was the adoption of the H.264/AVC standard supporting the 1080i video format for the high definition video coding. Wide adoption of high definition technology has been a process that can be observed in lots of countries, and new video formats, beyond 1080i have already been discussed and proposed. With both eyes in the next generation of TV, research centers like Japanese broadcaster NHK investigate human factors that should drive the system specifications of this one that may be the last step in terms of 2D television technology. Named UHDTV, the system may support 7680 horizontal dots per 4320 vertical dots in terms of resolution among other features. At the same time, the work exposed here discusses tools that support multimedia coding scalability as a way of gradually improving video formats for broadcast. This work specially deals with the H.264/AVC standard scalability tools, aiming their use within SBTVD. Therefore, the evolution of the system is discussed based on scalability and experimental results related to the digital TV spectral occupation in São Paulo city are analyzed, showing that there is enough exceeding bit rate available for future expansion. Initial results related to SVC coding are also shown, objectively indicating that video scalability is more advantageous than simulcast and that this technique can be used in SBTVD to provide new video formats, keeping compatibility with current receivers that only support 1080i format. This work presents theoretical and experimental contributions towards the adoption of SVC in the SBTVD, pointing out some future works that, if executed, could confirm the transmission of new video format in SBTVD in the next years.

<p>A method for constructing a highly scalable bit stream for video coding is presented in detail and implemented in a demo application with a GUI in the Windows Vista operating system.</p><p>The video codec uses the Discrete Wavelet Transform in both spatial and temporal directions together with a zerotree quantizer to achieve a highly scalable bit stream in the senses of quality, spatial resolution and frame rate.</p> / <p>I detta arbete presenteras en metod för att skapa en mycket skalbar videoström. Metoden implementeras sedan i sin helhet i programspråken C och C++ med ett grafiskt användargränssnitt på operativsystemet Windows Vista.</p><p>I metoden används den diskreta wavelettransformen i såväl de spatiella dimensionerna som tidsdimensionen tillsammans med en nollträdskvantiserare för att åstakomma en skalbar videoström i avseendena bildkvalitet, skärmupplösning och antal bildrutor per sekund.</p>

Fourth Generation (4G) cellular technology Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) offers high data rate capabilities to mobile users; and, operators are trying to deliver a true mobile broadband experience over LTE networks. Mobile TV and Video on Demand (VoD) are expected to be the main revenue generators in the near future [36] and efficient video streaming over wireless is the key to enabling this. 3GPP recommends the use of H.264 baseline profiles for all video based services in Third Generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) networks. However, LTE networks need to support mobile devices with different display resolution requirements like small resolution mobile phones and high resolution laptops. Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is required to achieve this goal. Feasibility study of SVC for LTE is one of the main agenda of 3GPP Release10. SVC enhances H.264 with a set of new profiles and encoding tools that may be used to produce scalable bit streams. Efficient adaptation methods for SVC video transmission over LTE networks are proposed in this thesis. Advantages of SVC over H.264 are analyzed using real time use cases of mobile video streaming. Further, we study the cross layer adaptation and scheduling schemes for delivering SVC video streams most efficiently to the users in LTE networks in unicast and multicast transmissions. We propose SVC based video streaming scheme for unicast and multicast transmissions in the downlink direction, with dynamic adaptations and a scheduling scheme based on channel quality information from users. Simulation results indicate improved video quality for more number of users in the coverage area and efficient spectrum usage with the proposed methods.

Multimedia applications over the Internet and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) gain a lot of attention. IPTV has a number of service requirements such as / high bandwidth, scalability, minimum delay, jitter and channel switch time. IP multicast, IMS (IP Multimedia System) Protocol and peer-to-peer approaches are proposed for implementing IPTV. However, IP multicast requires all the routers in the core network to possess multicast capability, IMS does not easily scale and P2P cannot eciently utilize the network resources because of its completely distributed nature. To this end, we propose new application layer multicast protocol Cluster Based Application Layer Multicast IPTV (CALMTV) which combines application layer multicast, scalable video coding and probing techniques to meet IPTV requirements. We present the components and their relevant algorithms and evaluate the performance of CALMTV with ns2 simulations. Our results compared with the published results of other IPTV architectures show that CALMTV has better performance in end-to-end delay and zapping time.

Fourth Generation (4G) cellular technology Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) offers high data rate capabilities to mobile users; and, operators are trying to deliver a true mobile broadband experience over LTE networks. Mobile TV and Video on Demand (VoD) are expected to be the main revenue generators in the near future [36] and efficient video streaming over wireless is the key to enabling this. 3GPP recommends the use of H.264 baseline profiles for all video based services in Third Generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) networks. However, LTE networks need to support mobile devices with different display resolution requirements like small resolution mobile phones and high resolution laptops. Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is required to achieve this goal. Feasibility study of SVC for LTE is one of the main agenda of 3GPP Release10. SVC enhances H.264 with a set of new profiles and encoding tools that may be used to produce scalable bit streams. Efficient adaptation methods for SVC video transmission over LTE networks are proposed in this thesis. Advantages of SVC over H.264 are analyzed using real time use cases of mobile video streaming. Further, we study the cross layer adaptation and scheduling schemes for delivering SVC video streams most efficiently to the users in LTE networks in unicast and multicast transmissions. We propose SVC based video streaming scheme for unicast and multicast transmissions in the downlink direction, with dynamic adaptations and a scheduling scheme based on channel quality information from users. Simulation results indicate improved video quality for more number of users in the coverage area and efficient spectrum usage with the proposed methods.

A method for constructing a highly scalable bit stream for video coding is presented in detail and implemented in a demo application with a GUI in the Windows Vista operating system. The video codec uses the Discrete Wavelet Transform in both spatial and temporal directions together with a zerotree quantizer to achieve a highly scalable bit stream in the senses of quality, spatial resolution and frame rate. / I detta arbete presenteras en metod för att skapa en mycket skalbar videoström. Metoden implementeras sedan i sin helhet i programspråken C och C++ med ett grafiskt användargränssnitt på operativsystemet Windows Vista. I metoden används den diskreta wavelettransformen i såväl de spatiella dimensionerna som tidsdimensionen tillsammans med en nollträdskvantiserare för att åstakomma en skalbar videoström i avseendena bildkvalitet, skärmupplösning och antal bildrutor per sekund.