Mobile networks are highly unpredictable and might be unreliable for real-time mobile video streaming due to various wireless network conditions. Video frames could be delayed or lost and could affect the perceived quality of a video stream. The time-sensitive nature of real-time video streaming is to deliver the video frames to the mobile devices and to provide smooth playback. This study examines the concept of streaming the video frames over two wireless channels from the server to the mobile device in order to play the complete video frame sequence to the mobile users. The simulator is been developed to provide a reliable video streaming until if there is a missing frame(s). A switching mechanism is been implemented in the client side to switch between the video streams to replace the missing frames. This will provide a smooth playback of the video stream and perceived video quality to the mobile user.

In this thesis, the effect of buffer strategy on video quality has been investigated. For this purpose, a software system was developed to implement buffer strategy at sender and receiver sides. Four experiments were performed under this system and five scenarios were designed under each experiment. A subjective test of MOS was conducted for all the scenarios to collect people’s perception about three different videos. People from different background and of different age group were invited to take part in all the experiments. Three different videos were shown to each participant in order to investigate user perceived quality of video. MATLAB and MS Excel were used for data collection and plotting graphs. We conclude that people have convergence of opinions when communication break time increases than the size of buffers at both ends. Finally, the MOS ratings of this subjective test prove that by the use of same size buffers at both ends improves the user’s perceived quality of video at acceptable level. Because of empirical study, the main focus was on implementation strategy of buffers at both ends. The implementation strategy was the design of a number of scenarios in which the statistics of the behavior of sender and receiver buffers have been collected. / 0092 662 424477

In this thesis we study users' viewing motions when watching 360° videos in order to provide information that can be used to optimize future view-dependent streaming protocols. More specifically, we develop an application that plays a sequence of 360° videos on an Oculus Rift Head Mounted Display and records the orientation and rotation velocity of the headset during playback. The application is used during an extensive user study in order to collect more than 21 hours of viewing data which is then analysed to expose viewing patterns, useful for optimizing 360° streaming protocols.

Currently, more and more people use music streaming websites to listen to music, and a music recommendation service is commonly provided on the music streaming websites. A good music recommender system improves people’s user experience of music streaming websites. Nevertheless, there are some issues regarding the existing music recommender systems that need to be looked into.The purpose of this thesis is to identify the weaknesses of music recommender systems. Spotify, a Swedish music streaming website, has a large number of users. As it is a widely known streaming service, it seems appropriate for a case study on the drawbacks of music recommender systems.The case study method has been chosen for doing this research. The process of making up this thesis was divided into three stages. At the first stage, some basic preparations for the thesis were done. The second stage was characterized by some empirical work, like interviews and questionnaires, to collect the required data. Those empirical findings were analyzed in the third part to help us to identify and define the drawbacks.The research results presented in this thesis contribute to close several knowledge gaps in the area of music recommender systems and could thus be beneficial to different actors: streaming website operators to identify drawbacks of their recommender system; designers of recommender systems to improve system design; and, last but not least, this thesis provides some useful advice to those who market music streaming websites.This thesis does not focus on the technical and algorithm fields, i.e. the hardware- and software-related background. Instead, the idea and the functions of the recommender system, its feedback loop and the user experience were subject to our research and discussion. The results of the thesis can provide those responsible with both and inspiration for creating more customized recommender systems.

I denna rapport har tillgänglighetens påverkan på upplevelsen vid musiklyssning undersökts. Inspiration har till största del hämtats från tidigare forskning inom musikpsykologi. Insamling av empiri gjordes genom ett lyssningstest där två olika grupper fick höra ett och samma stycke musik på två olika vis. Ena gruppen fick musiken uppspelad från en dator och blev informerade om att musiken de skulle höra fanns tillgänglig, gratis, på internet. Den andra gruppen fick höra samma musik men uppspelad från kassett. De fick veta att musiken inte fanns tillgänglig på internet och att de bara skulle få höra musiken en gång, sen aldrig mer. Efter de hört musiken fyllde samtliga informanter i en enkät för att beskriva sin upplevelse. Den sammanställda datan visar på att upplevelsen såg något annorlunda ut mellan grupperna.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur tablåplanerare ser på den svenska tv-tablån, dess utformning och dess framtid samt hur kanalerna förhåller sig till jämställdhet vid tablåplanering. För att göra detta möjligt har vi utfört fem kvalitativa intervjuer med tablåplanerare från stora kanaler i Sverige. Valet av kvalitativ intervju grundar sig i att få djupare förståelse och inblick i informanternas kunskaper om tablåplanering samt dess innehåll och mening. Metoden som användes vid analys av transkriberad text från intervjuerna var tematiserad analysmetod. Genom att sortera texterna efter teman kunde vi finna mönster från informanternas svar som sedan kunde jämföras mot varandra. Denna uppsats har resulterat i en insyn i hur tablåplanerarna arbetar; de följer tittarsiffror, granskar nya program, konkurrensbevakar och följer publikens efterfrågan. Denna studie visar även på att det finns bristande genusmedvetenhet hos de undersökta svenska tv-kanalerna. Framtiden för tv-tablån är oviss med tablåplanerarna menar att tv-tablån kommer överleva, dock måste en omställning ske på grund av att tittarmönstret förändras

Syfte: Studien syftar till att få en djupare förståelse i hur användarens tittarvanor påverkas av Netflix design och teknik, och huruvida dessa uppmuntrar användaren till Binge Watching. Teori: Studien använder sig främst av Sidneyeve Matrix (2014) teori och forskning om det tekniska fenomenet Binge Watching från artikeln “The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching and on Demand Media Trends” samt Jonas Löwgrens (2002) teori om kvalitet på användning från artikeln “The use qualities of digital designs, draft 1.0”. Även Gunnar Nygren och Ingela Wadbrings (2013) forskning om den tekniska utvecklingen från publikationen “På väg mot medievärlden 2020” används i undersökningen. Metod: Studien utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsmetod baserad på enskilda djupgående intervjuer. Resultat: Resultatanalysen indikerar att Netflix teknik och funktioner har en stor påverkan på användaren och dess tittarvanor. Informanterna upplever att de utan dessa funktioner inte hade använt tjänsten i lika stor utsträckning och att en lojalitet och känslomässig hängivenhet upprättats efter Netflix många taktiker att förbättra den personliga användarupplevelsen. De tekniska funktionerna har även resulterat i att samtliga informanter kontinuerligt Binge Watchar och inte sällan ser fler avsnitt av en serie än från början tänkt. / Purpose: The study aims to gain a deeper understanding of how the users viewing habits are influenced by Netflix design and technology, and whether they encourage the user to Binge Watching. Theory: The study mainly uses the theory and research by Sidneyeve Matrix (2014) on the technical phenomenon Binge Watching from the article “The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching and on Demand Media Trends” and the theory about the use qualities by Jonas Löwgren (2002) from the article “The use qualities of digital designs, draft 1.0”. The research on technological developments by Gunnar Nygren and Ingela Wadbring (2013) from the publication “På väg mot medievärlden 2020” is also used in this study. Method: The study is based on a qualitative research method based on individual in-depth interviews. Results: The result analysis indicates that Netflix technologies and features have a transparent impact on users and their viewing habits. The informants felt that they without these features would not have used the service to the same extent and that loyalty and emotional commitment was established due to the many tactics Netflix used to improve the personal user experience. The technical features have also resulted in an increased Binge Watching for all of the informants who also often view more episodes of a series than originally thought. It also became clear that it was the technology, features and wider range that made Netflix the most preferred VoD service among the informants.

Denna studie undersöker hur det privata vardagslyssnade av musik ser ut idag hos studenter. Studien har särskild fokus på hur lyssnandet påverkas av studenternas tillgång till musik via tjänsten Spotify. Uppsatsen presenterar, diskuterar och analyserar fem semi-strukturerade intervjuer utifrån tidigare forskning samt psykologen James Gibsons teori om affordance. Undersökningen är strukturerad efter ett antal teman som exempelvis: musik som tröst, musik för att kontrollera en social situation och musik och identitet. Materialet från intervjuerna jämförs och analyseras utifrån teorin om affordance. Resultatet visar att vardagslyssnandet idag ser annorlunda ut på grund av den mängd av musik som idag finns tillgängligt för studenterna, till skillnad från innan streamingstjänsterna slog igenom.

Användandet av streamingtjänster med betalningslösningar blir allt vanligare. Streaming viaolika plattformar såsom datorer, surfplattor och telefoner är ett mer lättillgängligt sätt attkomma åt exempelvis fotbollsmatcher och liknande än det traditionella sättet via TVsändningar.Genom att köpa en streamingtjänst får du möjlighet att titta på det du önskar vardu vill, vilket inte är möjligt med traditionell Tv-underhållning.Streamingtjänster har funnits i ett antal år men är fortfarande en relativt ny marknad, vilkenhela tiden expanderas och tekniskt utvecklas. Det finns en mängd företag som erbjuderstreamingtjänster och i uppsatsen har två leverantörer beskrivits, vilka båda erbjudermöjlighet till att streama herrfotboll.Fokus för uppsatsen har varit att utreda hur företagen förhåller sig till dagenskonkurrenslagstiftning. I 2 kap 7 § Konkurrenslagen (2008:579) fastställs förbudet motmissbruk av dominerande ställning. Uppsatsen är inriktad på att undersöka om något av devalda företagen kan ha dominerande ställning och om den i sådant fall missbrukas. Iuppsatsen framhävs svårigheterna med att avgränsa den relevanta produktmarknaden förstreamingtjänster utifrån dagens reglering samt vägledande praxis. Problematiken angåendeavgränsningen framhävs eftersom den ligger till grund för bedömningen om dominerandeställning föreligger.Eftersom det är en ständigt utvecklande marknad kommer vi belysa problematiken somuppstår när juridikens vägledning är svårapplicerad på en ny marknad.

The growth of the Internet has led to research and development of several new and useful applications including video streaming. Commercial experiments are underway to determine the feasibility of multimedia broadcasting using packet based data networks alongside traditional over-the-air broadcasting. Broadcasting companies are offering low cost or free versions of video content online to both guage and at the same time generate popularity. In addition to television broadcasting, video streaming is used in a number of application areas including video conferencing, telecommuting and long distance education. Large scale video streaming has not become as widespread or widely deployed as could be expected. The reason for this is the high bandwidth requirement (and thus high cost) associated with video data. Provision of a constant stream of video data on a medium to large scale typically consumes a significant amount of bandwidth. An effect of this is that encoding bit rates are lowered and consequently video quality is degraded resulting in even slower uptake rates for video streaming services. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate peer-to-peer streaming as a potential solution to this bandwidth problem. The proposed peer-to-peer based solution relies on end user co-operation for video data distribution. This approach is highly effective in reducing the outgoing bandwidth requirement for the video streaming server. End users redistribute received video chunks amongst their respective peers and in so doing increase the potential capacity of the entire network for supporting more clients. A secondary effect of such a system is that encoding capabilities (including higher encoding bit rates or encoding of additional sub-channels) can be enhanced. Peer-to-peer distribution enables any regular user to stream video to large streaming networks with many viewers. This research includes a detailed overview of the fields of video streaming and peer-to-peer networking. Techniques for optimal video preparation and data distribution were investigated. A variety of academic and commercial peer-to-peer based multimedia broadcasting systems were analysed as a means to further define and place the proposed implementation in context with respect to other peercasting implementations. A proof-of-concept of the proposed implementation was developed, mathematically analyzed and simulated in a typical deployment scenario. Analysis was carried out to predict simulation performance and as a form of design evaluation and verification. The analysis highlighted some critical areas which resulted in adaptations to the initial design as well as conditions under which performance can be guaranteed. A simulation of the proof-of-concept system was used to determine the extent of bandwidth savings for the video server. The aim of the simulations was to show that it is possible to encode and deliver video data in real time over a peer-to-peer network. The proposed system achieved expectations and showed significant bandwidth savings for a sustantially large video streaming audience. The implementation was able to encode video in real time and continually stream video packets on time to connected peers while continually supporting network growth by connecting additional peers (or stream viewers). The system performed well and showed good performance under typical real world restrictions on available bandwith capacity. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted