Since the coronavirus pandemic in 2019, millions of people started to use online streaming and entertainment services during the lockdown. Streaming solutions such as OTT and IPTV has grown and boosted the live streaming and non-linear streaming revenue, by using new technologies and innovation such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the video quality, performance, and security of video streaming services. However, QoS and QoE guarantee and traffic management is still a challenge to many multimedia services and systems provided over the Internet. In this paper the analysis of a proposed user-friendly design will be discussed, describing how it can improve the management and troubleshooting experience. And in what way an AI knowledge-based agent can be used to improve and support the operators daily tasks and challenges. With an usability test, the results showed that the combination of an user-centered interface and AI-technology can improve the productivity in video troubleshooting and prevention of common issues. The user-centered design focuses on the user’s goal and needs, using interactive products to help the user achieve their goal. And the AI would assist the operators to identifying network congestion, stream quality, and much more.

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This project will be based in an objective and as well as subjective study related to Quality of Experience in a video conference application, appear.in. Indeed the study puts emphasis on finding possible correlations between Quality of Service parameters, that in the study are represented by some of the most meaningful network parameters, and contextual parameters with Quality of Experience. To achieve this the study was based in two different scenarios using two test environments. One is based on having an all free test and the other conducted in a created test-bad for monitoring and altering network parameters to see how user respond to the changes. Both scenarios were accompanied by a survey that provided useful information about the subjective perception of different individuals that took part in the testing phase.The project is divided in two phases where we set up the required environments for the test and then we process results to find correlation between the above mentioned parameters.In the end of the project all the results and the conclusions are presented providing a clearer view for what was done. The project itself might represent a good foundation to be used in the future for other studies related to video conferencing application.

Esta tesis doctoral aborda el problema de la transmisión de vídeo, en sistemas de transmisión de televisión y vídeo bajo demanda en tiempo real y de videoconferencia, a través de redes IP, haciendo un énfasis especial cuando la conexión se establece entre dispositivos móviles. En la primera parte del trabajo se introduce la transmisión de video en redes IP y se hace especial incapie en la videoconferencia, pasando posteriormente a presentar el estado del arte en ambos ámbitos. Tratamos y estudiamos cuestiones relacionadas con la compresión de vídeo, la calidad del vídeo recibido, la calidad de experiencia (QoE), sistemas para la mejora de la QoE para la videoconferencia y también tecnologías, como Software Defined Networking (SDN), que nos permiten mejorar dinámicamente la configuración de los dispositivos de red para mejorar la QoE percibida por los usuarios finales. Posteriormente, pasamos a describir el diseño de la arquitectura y el protocolo para la transmisión de vídeo en redes IP, con distintos objetivos. Proponemos una arquitectura y un protocolo para mejorar la QoE de los usuarios en la transmisión de vídeo en Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). También lo hacemos para la transmisión de vídeo en Redes Heterogéneas usando HTML5. Por último proponemos un algoritmo y protocolo para mejorar QoE de la transmisión de vídeo en redes empleadas para la monitorización ambiental, basándonos principalmente en un estudio fundamentado en la codificación en función del color predominante de las imágenes del vídeo. En el siguiente capítulo pasamos a proponer una nueva arquitectura y un protocolo para la mejora de la calidad de experiencia de extremo a extremo (E2E QoE) de los usuarios conectados a una videoconferencia. Definimos el proceso del sistema, la máquina de estados finita y el algoritmo necesario para su correcto funcionamiento. Por último, presentamos las distintas pruebas experimentales que se han realizado para estudiar y determinar los mejores sistemas de codificación, y su comportamiento al utilizar tecnologías como SDN en redes de dispositivos móviles, en Redes Heterogéneas usando HTML5 y en videoconferencia. / This doctoral thesis faces the problem of video transmission, in television transmission systems and video on demand in real time, and video conferencing, in IP networks, making a special emphasis when the connection is established between mobile devices. In the first part of the work, video transmission in IP networks is introduced, and a special emphasis is made on videoconference, afterwards presenting the state of the art in both areas. We address several issues related to video compression, the quality of the video received, the Quality of Experience (QoE), systems for improving the QoE for videoconferencing and also technologies, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN), which allow us to dynamically improve the configuration of the network devices to improve the QoE perceived by the end users. Later, we come to describe the design of the architecture and protocol for the transmission of video in IP networks, with different objectives. We propose an architecture and a protocol to improve the QoE of the end users in the transmission of video in Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). We also do it for the transmission of video in Heterogeneous Networks using HTML5. Finally, we propose an algorithm and protocol to improve QoE of video transmission in networks used for environmental monitoring, fundamentated mainly on a study substantiated on coding based on the predominant color of the images of the video. In the next chapter, we propose a new architecture and a protocol for improving the End-to-End Quality of Experience (E2E QoE) of the users connected to a video conference. We define the process of the system, the finite state machine and the algorithm necessary for its correct operation. Finally, we present the different experimental tests that have been carried out to study and determine the best coding systems, and their behavior when using technologies such as SDN in networks of mobile devices, in Heterogeneous Networks using HTML5 and in videoconference. / Aquesta tesi doctoral aborda el problema de la transmissió de vídeo, en sistemes de transmissió de televisió i vídeo sota demanda en temps real, i de videoconferència, a través de xarxes IP, fent un èmfasi especial quan la connexió s'estableix entre dispositius mòbils. En la primera part del treball s'introdueix la transmissió de vídeo en xarxes IP i es fa especial incapie en la videoconferència, passant posteriorment a presentar a l'estat de l'art en tots dos àmbits. Tractem i estudiem qüestions relacionades amb la compressió de vídeo, la qualitat del vídeo rebut, la qualitat d'experiència (QoE), sistemes per a la millora de la QoE per a la videoconferència i també tecnologies, com a Software Defined Networking (SDN), que ens permeten millorar dinàmicament la configuració dels dispositius de xarxa per a millorar la QoE percebuda pels usuaris finals. Posteriorment, passem a descriure el disseny de l'arquitectura i el protocol per a la transmissió de vídeo en xarxes IP, amb diferents objectius. Proposem una arquitectura i un protocol per a millorar la QoE dels usuaris en la transmissió de vídeo en Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). També ho fem per a la transmissió de vídeo en Xarxes Heterogènies usant HTML5. Finalment proposem un algoritme i un protocol per a millorar QoE de la transmissió de vídeo en xarxes emprades per al monitoratge ambiental, basant-nos principalment en un estudi fonamentat en la codificació en funció del color predominant del vídeo. En el següent capítol passem a proposar una nova arquitectura i un protocol per a la millora de la qualitat d'experiència d'extrem a extrem (I2I QoE) dels usuaris connectats a una videoconferència. Definim el procés del sistema, la màquina d'estats finita i l'algoritme necessari per al seu correcte funcionament. Finalment presentem les diferents proves experimentals que s'han realitzat per a estudiar i determinar els millors sistemes de codificació, i el seu comportament en utilitzar tecnologies com SDN en xarxes de dispositius mòbils, en Xarxes Heterogènies usant HTML5 i en videoconferència. / Jiménez Herranz, JM. (2018). Design of an architecture and communication protocol for video transmission and videoconference [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/107321

Depth-Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) est une technologie fondamentale dans plusieurs applications liées à la 3D, telles que la vidéo en mode point de vue libre (FVV), la réalité virtuelle (VR) et la réalité augmentée (AR). Cependant, l'évaluation de la qualité des vues synthétisées par DIBR a également posé de nouveaux problèmes, car ce processus induit de nouveaux types de distorsions, qui sont intrinsèquement différentes des distorsions provoquées par le codage vidéo. Ce travail est destiné à mieux évaluer la qualité des vues synthétisées par DIBR en multimédia immersif. Au chapitre 2, nous proposons deux métriques complètements sans référence (NR). Le principe de la première métrique NR NIQSV consiste à utiliser plusieurs opérations morphologiques d’ouverture et de fermeture pour détecter et mesurer les distorsions, telles que les régions floues et l’effritement. Dans la deuxième métrique NR NIQSV+, nous améliorons NIQSV en ajoutant un détecteur de “black hole” et une détection “stretching”.Au chapitre 3, nous proposons deux métriques de référence complète pour traiter les distorsions géométriques à l'aide d'un masque de désocclusion et d'une méthode de correspondance de blocs multi-résolution. Au chapitre 4, nous présentons une nouvelle base de données d'images synthétisée par DIBR avec ses scores subjectifs associés. Ce travail se concentre sur les distorsions uniquement induites par différentes méthodes de synthèse de DIBR qui déterminent la qualité d’expérience (QoE) de ces applications liées à DIBR. En outre, nous effectuons également une analyse de référence des mesures d'évaluation de la qualité objective de pointe pour les vues synthétisées par DIBR sur cette base de données. Le chapitre 5 conclut les contributions de cette thèse et donne quelques orientations pour les travaux futurs. / Depth-Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) is a fundamental technology in several 3D-related applications, such as Free viewpoint video (FVV), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). However, new challenges have also been brought in assessing the quality of DIBR-synthesized views since this process induces some new types of distortions, which are inherently different from the distortions caused by video coding. This work is dedicated to better evaluate the quality of DIBRsynthesized views in immersive multimedia. In chapter 2, we propose a completely No-reference (NR) metric. The principle of the first NR metrics NIQSV is to use a couple of opening and closing morphological operations to detect and measure the distortions, such as “blurry regions” and “crumbling”. In the second NR metric NIQSV+, we improve NIQSV by adding a “black hole” and a “stretching” detection. In chapter 3, we propose two Fullreference metrics to handle the geometric distortions by using a dis-occlusion mask and a multi-resolution block matching methods.In chapter 4, we present a new DIBR-synthesized image database with its associated subjective scores. This work focuses on the distortions only induced by different DIBR synthesis methods which determine the quality of experience (QoE) of these DIBR related applications. In addition, we also conduct a benchmark of the state-of-the-art objective quality assessment metrics for DIBR-synthesized views on this database. The chapter 5 concludes the contributions of this thesis and gives some directions of future work.

Video streaming is widely recognized as the next Internet killer application. It was not one of the Internet's original target applications and its protocols (TCP in particular) were tuned mainly for e efficient bulk file transfer. As a result, a significant effort has focused on the development of UDP-based special protocols for streaming multimedia on the Internet. Recently, there has been a shift in video streaming from UDP to TCP, and specifically to HTTP. HTTP streaming provides a very attractive platform for video distribution on the Internet mainly because it can utilize all the current Internet infrastructure. In this thesis we make the argument that the marriage between HTTP streaming and the current Internet infrastructure can create many problems and inefficiencies. In order to solve these issues, we provide a set of techniques and protocols that can help both the network and end-hosts to make better decisions to improve video streaming quality. The thesis makes the following contributions: - We conduct a characterization study of popular commercial streaming services on mobile platforms. Our study shows that streaming services make different design decisions when implementing video players on different mobile platforms. We show that this can lead to several inefficiencies and undesirable behaviors specially when several clients compete for bandwidth in a shared bottleneck link. - Fairness between traffic flows has been preserved on the Internet through the use of TCP. However, due to the dynamics of adaptive video players and the lack of standard client adaptation techniques, fairness between multiple competing video flows is still an open issue of research. Our work extends the definition of standard bitrate fairness to utility fairness where utility is the Quality of Experience (QoE) of a video stream. We define QoE max-min fairness for a set of adaptive video flows competing for bandwidth in a network and we develop an algorithm that computes the set of bitrates that should be assigned to each stream to achieve fairness. We design and implement a system that can apply QoE fairness in home networks and evaluate the system on a real home router. - A well known problem that has been associated with TCP traffic is the buffer bloat problem. We use an experimental setup to show that adaptive video flows can cause buffer bloat which can significantly harm time sensitive applications sharing the same bottleneck link with video traffic. In addition, we develop a technique that can be used by video players to mitigate this problem. We implement our technique in a real video player and evaluate it on our testbed. - With the increasing popularity of video streaming on the Internet, the amounts of traffic on the peering links between video streaming providers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have become the source of many disputes. Hybrid CDN/P2P streaming systems can be used to reduce the amounts of traffic on the peering links by leveraging users upload bandwidth to redistribute some of the load to other peers. We develop an analysis for hybrid CDN/P2P systems that broadcast live adaptive video streams. The analysis helps the CDN to make better decisions to optimize video quality for its users.

Dans le domaine de la vision par ordinateur l'utilisation de points d'intérêt (PI) est récurrente pour les problématiques de reconnaissance et de suivi d'objets. Plusieurs études ont prouvé l'utilité de ces techniques, associant robustesse et un temps de calcul pouvant être compatible avec le temps réel. Cette thèse propose d'étudier et d'exploiter ces descripteurs de statistiques de l'image sous un tout autre regard. Ainsi, nous avons menée une étude sur le lien entre les PI et la saillance visuelle humaine. De cette étude nous avons pu développer une méthode de prédiction de carte de saillance exploitant la rapidité d'exécution de ces détecteurs. Nous avons également exploité le pouvoir descriptif de ces PI afin de développer de nouvelles métriques de qualité d'images. Grâce à des résultats encourageant en terme de prédiction de qualité perçue et la faible quantité d'information utilisée, nous avons pu intégrer notre métrique "QIP" dans une chaîne de transmission d'images sur réseau sans fil de type MIMO. L'ajout de cette métrique permet d'augmenter la qualité d'expérience en garantissant la meilleure qualité malgré les erreurs introduites par la transmission sans fil. Nous avons étendu cette étude, par l'analyse fine des statistiques structurelles de l'image et des migrations d'attributs afin de proposer un modèle générique de prédiction des dégradations. Enfin, nous avons été amenés à conduire diverses expériences psychovisuelles, pour valider les approches proposées ou dans le cadre de la normalisation de nouveaux standards du comité JPEG. Ce qui a mené à développer une application web dédiée à l'utilisation et la comparaison des métriques de qualité d'images. / In the field of computer vision, the use of interest points (IP) is very frequent for objects tracking and recognition. Several studies have demonstrated the usefulness of these techniques, combining robustness and complexity that can be compatible with the real time. This thesis proposes to explore and exploit these image statistical descriptors under a different angle. Thus, we conducted a study on the relationship between IP and human visual saliency. In this study, we developed a method for predicting saliency maps relying on the efficiency of the descriptors. We also used the descriptive power of the PI to develop new metrics for image quality. With encouraging results in terms of prediction of perceived quality and the reduced amount of used information, we were able to integrate our metric "QIP" in an image transmission framework over a MIMO wireless network. The inclusion of this metric can improve the quality of experience by ensuring the best visual quality despite the errors introduced by the wireless transmission. We have extended this study by deeply analyzing structural statistics of the image and migration attributes to provide a generic model for predicting impairments. Finally, we conducted various psychovisual experiments to validate the proposed approaches or to contribute to JPEG standard committee. This led to develop a web application dedicated to the benchmark of image quality metrics.

Avec l'hétérogénéité des réseaux et la demande croissante de services multimédias, la Qualité d'Expérience (QoE) devient un facteur déterminant de réussite ou d’échec de ces services. Dans cette thèse, nous avons d’abord analysé l'impact des paramètres de qualité sur l'engagement de l'utilisateur, afin de comprendre l’effet des paramètres vidéo (temps de démarrage, qualité intrinsèque, taux de blocage) et la popularité du service sur l'engagement de l'utilisateur. Nos résultats ont montré que le taux de blocage et la popularité du service sont des paramètres critiques qui impactent fortement la satisfaction et l'engagement de l’utilisateur, tandis que, le temps de démarrage a moins d’impact. Ensuite, les approches subjectives de QoE comme le Mean Opinion Score (MOS) ont été traité dans cette thèse, où les utilisateurs sont appelés à donner une note de satisfaction en fonction des informations de contextes. Une analyse statistique des résultats obtenus à partir de tests utilisateurs a montré que le type de terminal et de contenu sont des paramètres qui impactent fortement le MOS. En plus, des modèles mathématiques d’estimation de QoE en fonction des informations de contextes ont été proposés. Enfin, deux techniques d’optimisations ont été proposées : Le MDASH (MOS Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) pour l’optimisation vidéo de flux partageant les mêmes ressources, de manière à garantir une certaine QoE pour tous les utilisateurs. Et une optimisation de livraison, basée sur des fonctions d’utilités dans laquelle, une fonction globale d'utilité est calculée en fonction de différentes contraintes (qui dépendent fortement des stratégies des acteurs de la chaîne de livraison) / With the network heterogeneity and increasing demand of multimedia services, Quality of Experience (QoE) becomes a crucial determinant of the success or failure of these services. In this thesis, we first propose to analyze the impact of quality metrics on user engagement, in order to understand the effects of video metrics (video startup time, average bitrate, buffering ratio) and content popularity on user engagement. Our results show that video buffering and content popularity are critical parameters which strongly impacts the end-user’s satisfaction and user engagement, while the video startup time appears as less significant. On other hand, we consider subjective approaches such as the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for evaluating QoE, in which users are required to give their assessment according to contextual information. A detailed statistical analysis of our study shows the existence of non-trivial parameters impacting MOS (the type of device and the content type). We propose mathematical models to develop functional relationships between the QoE and the context information which in turn permits us to estimate the QoE. A video content optimization technique called MDASH (for MOS Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) is proposed, which improves the perceived QoE for different video sessions sharing the same local network, while taking QoE fairness among users as a leitmotiv. We also propose a utility-based approach for video delivery optimization, in which a global utility function is computed based on different constraints (e.g. target strategies coming from the actors of the delivery chain)

Progressive download video services, such as YouTube, are responsible for a major part of the transmitted data volume in the Internet and it is expected, that they also will strongly affect mobile networks. Streaming video quality mainly depends on the sustainable throughput achieved during transmission. In order to achieve an acceptable video quality in mobile networks (with limited capacity resources), traffic engineering mechanisms have to be applied. For that, the streaming video quality needs to be measured and monitored permanently. Therefore, the video timestamps which are encoded within the payload of the TCP segments have to be extracted. For that it is necessary to decode the video within the transported payload. Algorithms for decoding Flash Video, MP4 and WebM Video have already been implemented as a demonstration implementation in support of the network based measurement contribution to SG12 by Chemnitz University for TCP encoded progressive download Internet services. In the demonstration, the derived play out buffering from the monitored traffic is being output internally. A second application is then used to graphically display the estimation result. The measurement and estimation is solely done within a measurement point of an operator network without access to the client’s end device.

Provision of live streaming of video from fisheye camera is a popular business in the IT sector. Video dewarping is one of its special fields that expands rapidly. As the requirement of video quality becomes higher and higher, there is an increasing need for efficient solutions that can be utilized to process videos in attempts to gain desirable results. The problem is to determine the right combination of transmission bitrate and resolution for live streaming of the dewarped videos. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a prototype solution for dewarping video from fisheye camera and re-stream it to a client. This prototype is used for testing combinations of bitrate and resolution of the video in different scenarios. A system is devised to live stream a video from a fisheye camera, dewarp the video in a server and display the video in media players. The results reveal that the combination of bitrate 3.5 - 4.5 Mbps and resolution 720p is best suited for transmission to avoid noticeable lagging in playback. Comments of observers prove the promising use of the dewarped videos as Virtual Reality(VR) technology. / Direktsänd videoströmning från en kamera med fiskögaobjektiv är ett populärt och snabbväxande, speciellt inom vissa områden som videoförvrängning korrigering. Eftersom kravet på hög högkvalitativ video blir högre och högre, ökas också behovet av en effektiv videobearbetnings lösning för att få önskvärda resultat. Problemet är att bestämma rätt kombination av överföringsbithastighet och upplösning för direktströmning av bearbetade videon. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att utveckla en prototyplösning som korrigerar videoförvrängning från en kamera med fisköga-objektiv samt vidaresända den korrigerade videon till en klient. Denna prototyp används för att testa olika kombinationer av bithastighet och upplösning i olika scenarier. Ett prototypsystem utvecklades för att direktsända video från en kamera med fisköga-objektiv, korrigera videoförvrängningen i en server och spela upp de korrigerade video i en mediaspelare. Resultatet visar att kombinationen av bithastigheten mellan 3.5 - 4.5 Mbps och upplösningen 720p är den mest lämpliga för att undvika märkbara fördröjningar hos klienten. Den potentiella framtida användningen av den bearbetade videon inom Virtuell verklighet (VV) är lovande baserat på observatörernas kommentarer.