<p>IPTV is a growing form of distribution for TV and media. Reports show that the market will grow from the current 20-30 million subscribers to almost 100 million 2012. IPTV extends the traditional TV viewing with new services like renting movies from your TV. It could also be seen as a bridge between the traditional broadcast approach and the new on demand approach the users are used to from internet.</p><p>Since there are many actors in the IPTV market that all deliver the same basic functionality, companies must deliver better products that separate them from the competitors. This can be done either through doing things better than the others and/or delivering functionality that others can’t deliver.</p><p>This thesis project presents the development of a prototype system for serving user generated content in the IPTV middleware Dreamgallery. The developed prototype is a fully working system that includes (1) a fully automated system for transcoding, of video content. (2) A web portal presented with solutions for problems related to user content uploading and administration. (3) Seamless integration with the Dreamgallery middleware and end user GUI, with two different ways of viewing content. One way for easy exploration of new content and a second more structured way of browsing the content.</p><p>A study of three open source encoding softwares is also presented. The three encoders were subjects to tests of: speed, agility (file format support) and how well they handle files with corrupted data.</p>

Teleoperations is a significant field in robotics research; its applications range from emergency rooms in hospitals to space station orbiting the Earth to Mars rovers scavenging the red planet for microscopic life. We have developed a new user defined selective video object plane scheme. This selective filter works with standard H.264 encoder which is developed using Intel IPP and uses the latest multicore capabilities of new processors and can encode and transmit high definition videos over internet in real time. The area of interest is extracted and encoded at a different frame rate and noise level than rest of the frame. Our modified algorithm uses user input as well as motion detection of individual pixels to define video object plane. Video object plane filter is designed to be used for video with slow moving objects for cases like surgical procedures. The results of our compression algorithm have been verified using SSIM, PSNR and human perception survey. All these results of our VOP showed better performance than comparable encoders at the same bandwidth.

IPTV is a growing form of distribution for TV and media. Reports show that the market will grow from the current 20-30 million subscribers to almost 100 million 2012. IPTV extends the traditional TV viewing with new services like renting movies from your TV. It could also be seen as a bridge between the traditional broadcast approach and the new on demand approach the users are used to from internet. Since there are many actors in the IPTV market that all deliver the same basic functionality, companies must deliver better products that separate them from the competitors. This can be done either through doing things better than the others and/or delivering functionality that others can’t deliver. This thesis project presents the development of a prototype system for serving user generated content in the IPTV middleware Dreamgallery. The developed prototype is a fully working system that includes (1) a fully automated system for transcoding, of video content. (2) A web portal presented with solutions for problems related to user content uploading and administration. (3) Seamless integration with the Dreamgallery middleware and end user GUI, with two different ways of viewing content. One way for easy exploration of new content and a second more structured way of browsing the content. A study of three open source encoding softwares is also presented. The three encoders were subjects to tests of: speed, agility (file format support) and how well they handle files with corrupted data.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第19138号 / 情博第584号 / 新制||情||102(附属図書館) / 32089 / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科通信情報システム専攻 / (主査)教授 佐藤 高史, 教授 小野寺 秀俊, 教授 髙木 直史 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

Ces dernières années, l’utilisation de la vidéo comme support de diffusion de l’information est devenue prépondérante. Selon certains analystes, d’ici 2017, environ 90% de la bande passante mondiale sera consommée par des services utilisant des flux vidéos. Basées sur ce genre de services, les solutions de cloud gaming se démocratisent. Ces solutions ont été imaginées dans un contexte de développement fort du paradigme de cloud computing, et elles ont été dopées par la prolifération des terminaux mobiles ainsi que par la qualité des réseaux qui ne cesse de croître. Les technologies mises en œuvre dans ce type de solutions se réfèrent au rendu à distance. Pour permettre au plus grand nombre l’accès à ce type d’applications, mais aussi pour maximiser le nombre de clients par serveur, il est primordial de maîtriser au mieux la bande passante nécessaire au bon fonctionnement du service. Toutes les solutions de cloud gaming existantes utilisent une compression vidéo pour la transmission des images générées sur un serveur et à destination d’un client : le pixel règne en maître. Néanmoins, il existe bien d’autres façons de représenter une image numérique, notamment de manière paramétrique. Un certain nombre de travaux – à la fois sur l’image et la vidéo – montrent que cette approche est viable. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un espace de représentation hybride afin de réduire le débit binaire. Notre approche repose à la fois sur une approche pixel, mais aussi sur une approche paramétrique pour la compression d’un même flux vidéo. L’utilisation de deux systèmes de compression nécessite la définition de zones, auxquelles s’appliqueront les différents encodeurs. Pour le cas d’utilisation choisi, l’utilisateur étant un joueur impliqué de manière active dans la chaîne de rendu, il est intéressant d’utiliser un partitionnement de l’image dépendant des zones ou se porte son attention. Pour déterminer les zones importantes à ses yeux, un eye-tracker a été utilisé sur plusieurs jeux et par plusieurs testeurs. Cette étude permet de mettre en avant différentes corrélations, tant au niveau des caractéristiques des images que du type de jeu utilisé. Cette étude permet de connaître les zones que le joueur regarde ou ne regarde pas directement (obtention des « cartes d’attention sélective »), et ainsi de gérer les encodeurs en conséquence. Nous établissons ensuite l’architecture et l’implémentation d’un tel encodeur multimodal (que nous appelons « transmodeur ») afin d’établir la preuve de réalisation d’un tel encodeur. Profitant alors de la maîtrise complète de l’implémentation, nous nous livrons ensuite à l’analyse de l’influence des paramètres de notre transmodeur quant à son efficacité au moyen d’une étude objective. Le transmodeur a été intégré dans la chaîne de rendu utilisée par le projet XLcloud. Un certain nombre d’améliorations (au niveau des performances notamment) seront nécessaires pour une utilisation en production, mais il est dès à présent possible de l’utiliser de manière fluide en se limitant à des résolutions spatiales légèrement inférieures au 720p et à 30 images par seconde / The use of video as an information dissemination support has become preponderant during the last few years. According to some analysts, by 2017 approximately 90% of the world's bandwidth will be consumed by video streaming services. These services have encouraged cloud gaming solutions to become more democratic. Such solutions have been devised in the context of strong development of the cloud-computing paradigm, and they were driven by the proliferation of mobile devices as well as growing network quality. The technologies used in this kind of solutions refer to as remote rendering. They allow the execution of multiple applications, while maximizing the number of clients per server. Thus, it is essential to control the necessary bandwidth to allow the required functionality of various services. The existing cloud gaming solutions in the literature use various methods of video compression to transmit images between sever and clients (pixels reigns supreme). However, there are various other ways of encoding digital images, including parametric map storage and a number of studies encourage this approach (for both image and video). In this thesis, we propose a hybrid representation of space in order to reduce the bit rate. Our approach utilizes both pixel and parametric approaches for the compression of video stream. The use of two compression techniques requires defining the area to be covered by different encoders. This is accomplished by including user to the life cycle of rendering, and attending to the area mostly concerned to the user. In order to identify the area an eye-tracker device was used on several games and several testers. We also establish a correlation between the characteristics of images and the type of game. This helps to identify areas that the player looks directly or indirectly (“maps of selective attention"), and thus, encoders are manager accordingly. For this thesis, we details and implement the architecture and algorithms for such multi-model encoder (which we call "transmodeur") as proof of concept. We also provide an analytical study of out model and the influence of various parameters on transmodeur and describe in effectiveness through an objective study. Our transmodeur (rendering system) has been successfully integrated into XLcloud project for rendering purposes. A number of improvement (especially in performance) will be required for production use, but it is now possible to use it smoothly using spatial resolutions slightly lower than 720p at 30 frames per second

While there has always been a tremendous demand for streaming video over Wireless networks, the nature of the application still presents some challenging issues. These applications that transmit coded video sequence data over best-effort networks like the Internet, the application must cope with the changing network behaviour; especially, the source encoder rate should be controlled based on feedback from a channel estimator that explores the network intermittently. The arrival of powerful video compression techniques such as H.264, which advance in networking and telecommunications, opened up a whole new frontier for multimedia communications. The aim of this research is to transmit the H.264 coded video frames in the wireless network with maximum reliability and in a very efficient manner. When the H.264 encoded video sequences are to be transmitted through wireless network, it faces major difficulties in reaching the destination. The characteristics of H.264 video coded sequences are studied fully and their capability of transmitting in wireless networks are examined and a new approach called Optimal Packet Fragmentation (OPF) is framed and the H.264 coded sequences are tested in the wireless simulated environment. This research has three major studies involved in it. First part of the research has the study about Long Range Dependence (LRD) and the ways by which the self-similarity can be estimated. For estimating the LRD a few studies are carried out and Wavelet-based estimator is selected for the research because Wavelets incarcerate both time and frequency features in the data and regularly provides a more affluent picture than the classical Fourier analysis. The Wavelet used to estimate the self-similarity by using the variable called Hurst Parameter. Hurst Parameter tells the researcher about how a data can behave inside the transmitted network. This Hurst Parameter should be calculated for a more reliable transmission in the wireless network. The second part of the research deals with MPEG-4 and H.264 encoder. The study is carried out to prove which encoder is superior to the other. We need to know which encoder can provide excellent Quality of Service (QoS) and reliability. This study proves with the help of Hurst parameter that H.264 is superior to MPEG-4. The third part of the study is the vital part in this research; it deals with the H.264 video coded frames that are segmented into optimal packet size in the MAC Layer for an efficient and more reliable transfer in the wireless network. Finally the H.264 encoded video frames incorporated with the Optimal Packet Fragmentation are tested in the NS-2 wireless simulated network. The research proves the superiority of H.264 video encoder and OPF's master class.

This thesis looks at hardware algorithms that help reduce dynamic power dissipation in video encoder applications. Computational complexity of motion estimation and the data traffic between external memory and the video processing engine are two main reasons for large power dissipation in video encoders. While motion estimation may consume 50% to 70% of total video encoder power, the power dissipated in external memory such as the DDR SDRAM can be of the order of 40% of the total system power. Reducing power dissipation in video encoders is important in order to improve battery life of mobile devices such as the smart phones and digital camcorders. We propose hardware algorithms which extract only the important features in the video data to reduce the complexity of computations, communications and storage, thereby reducing average power dissipation. We apply this concept to design hardware algorithms for optimizing motion estimation matching complexity, and reference frame storage and access from the external memory. In addition, we also develop techniques to reduce searching complexity of motion estimation. First, we explore a set of adaptive algorithms that reduce average power dissipated due to motion estimation. We propose that by taking into account the macro-block level features in the video data, the average matching complexity of motion estimation in terms of number of computations in real-time hardwired video encoders can be significantly reduced when compared against traditional hardwired implementations, that are designed to handle most demanding data sets. Current macro-block features such as pixel variance and Hadamard transform coefficients are analyzed, and are used to adapt the matching complexity. The macro-block is partitioned based on these features to obtain sub-block sums, which are used for matching operations. Thus, simple macro-blocks, without many features can be matched with much less computations compared to the macro-blocks with complex features, leading to reduction in average power dissipation. Apart from optimizing the matching operation, optimizing the search operation is a powerful way to reduce motion estimation complexity. We propose novel search optimization techniques including (1) a center-biased search order and (2) skipping unlikely search positions, both applied in the context of real time hardware implementation. The proposed search optimization techniques take into account and are compatible with the reference data access pattern from the memory as required by the hardware algorithm. We demonstrate that the matching and searching optimization techniques together achieve nearly 65% reduction in power dissipation due to motion estimation, without any significant degradation in motion estimation quality. A key to low power dissipation in video encoders is minimizing the data traffic between the external memory devices such as DDR SDRAM and the video processor. External memory power can be as high as 50% of the total power budget in a multimedia system. Other than the power dissipation in external memory, the amount of data traffic is an important parameter that has significant impact on the system cost. Large memory traffic necessitates high speed external memories, high speed on-chip interconnect, and more parallel I/Os to increase the memory throughput. This leads to higher system cost. We explore a lossy, scalar quantization based reference frame compression technique that can be used to reduce the amount of reference data traffic from external memory devices significantly. In this scheme, the quantization is adapted based on the pixel range within each block being compressed. We show that the error introduced by the scalar quantization is bounded and can be represented by smaller number of bits compared to the original pixel. The proposed reference frame compression scheme uses this property to minimize the motion compensation related traffic, thereby improving the compression scheme efficiency. The scheme maintains a fixed compression ratio, and the size of the quantization error is also kept constant. This enables easy storage and retrieval of reference data. The impact of using lossy reference on the motion estimation quality is negligible. As a result of reduction in DDR traffic, the DDR power is reduced significantly. The power dissipation due to additional hardware required for reference frame compression is very small compared to the reduction in DDR power. 24% reduction in peak DDR bandwidth and 23% net reduction in average DDR power is achieved. For video sequences with larger motion, the amount of bandwidth reduction is even higher (close to 40%) and reduction in power is close to 30%.

While there has always been a tremendous demand for streaming video over Wireless networks, the nature of the application still presents some challenging issues. These applications that transmit coded video sequence data over best-effort networks like the Internet, the application must cope with the changing network behaviour; especially, the source encoder rate should be controlled based on feedback from a channel estimator that explores the network intermittently. The arrival of powerful video compression techniques such as H.264, which advance in networking and telecommunications, opened up a whole new frontier for multimedia communications. The aim of this research is to transmit the H.264 coded video frames in the wireless network with maximum reliability and in a very efficient manner. When the H.264 encoded video sequences are to be transmitted through wireless network, it faces major difficulties in reaching the destination. The characteristics of H.264 video coded sequences are studied fully and their capability of transmitting in wireless networks are examined and a new approach called Optimal Packet Fragmentation (OPF) is framed and the H.264 coded sequences are tested in the wireless simulated environment. This research has three major studies involved in it. First part of the research has the study about Long Range Dependence (LRD) and the ways by which the self-similarity can be estimated. For estimating the LRD a few studies are carried out and Wavelet-based estimator is selected for the research because Wavelets incarcerate both time and frequency features in the data and regularly provides a more affluent picture than the classical Fourier analysis. The Wavelet used to estimate the self-similarity by using the variable called Hurst Parameter. Hurst Parameter tells the researcher about how a data can behave inside the transmitted network. This Hurst Parameter should be calculated for a more reliable transmission in the wireless network. The second part of the research deals with MPEG-4 and H.264 encoder. The study is carried out to prove which encoder is superior to the other. We need to know which encoder can provide excellent Quality of Service (QoS) and reliability. This study proves with the help of Hurst parameter that H.264 is superior to MPEG-4. The third part of the study is the vital part in this research; it deals with the H.264 video coded frames that are segmented into optimal packet size in the MAC Layer for an efficient and more reliable transfer in the wireless network. Finally the H.264 encoded video frames incorporated with the Optimal Packet Fragmentation are tested in the NS-2 wireless simulated network. The research proves the superiority of H.264 video encoder and OPF¿s master class.