Esta Tese propõe duas métricas objetivas para avaliar a percepção de qualidade de vídeos sujeitos a degradações de transmissão em uma rede de pacotes. A primeira métrica usa apenas o vídeo degradado, enquanto que a segunda usa os vídeos de referência e degradado. Esta última é uma métrica de referência completa (FR - Full Reference) chamada de QCM (Quadratic Combinational Metric) e a primeira é uma métrica sem referência (NR - No Reference) chamada de VQOM (Viewing Quality Objective Metric). Em particular, o procedimento de projeto é aplicado à degradação de variação de atraso de pacotes (PDV - Packet Delay Variation). A métrica NR é descrita por uma spline cúbica composta por dois polinômios cúbicos que se encontram suavemente num ponto chamado de nó. Para o projeto de ambas métricas, colhem-se opiniões de observadores a respeito das sequências de vídeo degradadas que compõem o conjunto. A função objetiva inclui o erro quadrático total entre as opiniões e suas estimativas paramétricas, ainda consideradas como expressões algébricas. Acrescentam-se à função objetiva três condições de igualdades de derivadas tomadas no nó, cuja posição é especificada dentro de uma grade fina de pontos entre o valor mínimo e o valor máximo do fator de degradação. Essas condições são afetadas por multiplicadores de Lagrange e adicionadas à função objetiva, obtendo-se o lagrangiano, que é minimizado pela determinação dos coeficientes subótimos dos polinômios em função de cada valor do nó na grade. Finalmente escolhe-se o valor do nó que produz o erro quadrático mínimo, determinando assim os valores finais para dos coeficientes do polinômio. Por outro lado, a métrica FR é uma combinação não-linear de duas métricas populares, a PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) e a SSIM (Structural Similarity Index). Um polinômio completo de segundo grau de duas variáveis é usado para realizar a combinação, porque é sensível a ambas métricas constituintes, evitando o sobreajuste em decorrência do baixo grau. Na fase de treinamento, o conjunto de valores dos coeficientes do polinômio é determinado através da minimização do erro quadrático médio para as opiniões sobre a base de dados de treino. Ambas métricas, a VQOM e a QCM, são treinadas e validadas usando uma base de dados, e testadas com outra independente. Os resultados de teste são comparados com métricas NR e FR recentes através de coeficientes de correlação, obtendo-se resultados favoráveis para as métricas propostas. / This dissertation proposes two objective metrics for estimating human perception of quality for video subject to transmission degradation over packet networks. The first metric just uses traffic data while the second one uses both the degraded and the reference video sequences. That is, the latter is a full reference (FR) metric called Quadratic Combinational Metric (QCM) and the former one is a no reference (NR) metric called Viewing Quality Objective Metric (VQOM). In particular, the design procedure is applied to packet delay variation (PDV) impairments, whose compensation or control is very important to maintain quality. The NR metric is described by a cubic spline composed of two cubic polynomials that meet smoothly at a point called a knot. As the first step in the design of either metric, the spectators score a training set of degraded video sequences. The objective function for designing the NR metric includes the total square error between the scores and their parametric estimates, still regarded as algebraic expressions. In addition, the objective function is augmented by the addition of three equality constraints for the derivatives at the knot, whose position is specified within a fine grid of points between the minimum value and the maximum value of the degradation factor. These constraints are affected by Lagrange multipliers and added to the objective function to obtain the Lagrangian, which is minimized by the suboptimal polynomial coefficients determined as a function of each knot in the grid. Finally, the knot value is selected that yields the minimum square error. By means of the selected knot value, the final values of the polynomial coefficients are determined. On the other hand, the FR metric is a nonlinear combination of two popular metrics, namely, the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) and the Structural Similarity Index (SSIM). A complete second-degree two-variable polynomial is used for the combination since it is sensitive to both constituent metrics while avoiding overfitting. In the training phase, the set of values for the coefficients of this polynomial is determined by minimizing the mean square error to the opinions over the training database. Both metrics, the VQOM and the QCM, are trained and validated using one database and tested with a different one. The test results are compared with recent NR and FR metrics by means of correlation coefficients, obtaining favorable results for the proposed metrics.

A drastic increase in traffic of mobile broadband is seen in the past few years, which is further accelerated by the increase in usage of smart phones and its applications. The availability of good smart phones and better data connectivity are encouraging mobile users to use video services. This huge increase in usage will pose a lot of challenges to the wireless networks. The wireless network has to become content aware in order to offer enhanced quality of video service through efficient utilization of the wireless spectrum. This thesis focuses on improving the Quality of Experience (QoE) for video transmission over Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks by imparting the content awareness to the system and providing unequal error protection for critical video packets. Two different schemes for the improvement of video quality delivery over LTE networks are presented in this thesis. Using content awareness, the retransmission count of Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) are changed dynamically such that the most important video frame gets more number of retransmission attempts, which increases its success for delivery in-turn increasing the received video quality. Since Radio Link Control (RLC) is the link layer for radio interface, the second approach focuses on optimizing this layer for efficient video transmission. As part of this scheme, a new operation mode called Hybrid Mode (HM) for RLC is defined. This mode performs retransmission only for the critical video frames, leaving other frames to unacknowledged transmission. The simulation results of both proposed schemes provide significant improvement in achieving good video quality without affecting the system performance.

In this study, we study the dynamics of network adaptive video streaming and propose novel algorithms for rate distortion control in video streaming. While doing so, we maintain inter-protocol fairness with TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) that is the dominant transport protocol in the current Internet. The proposed algorithms are retransmission-based and necessitate the use of playback buffers in order to tolerate the extra latency introduced by retransmissions. In the first part, we propose a practical network-adaptive streaming scheme based on TCP transport and the idea of Selective Frame Discarding (SFD) that makes use of two-layer temporally scalable video. The efficacy of the SFD scheme is validated for playout buffer times in the order of seconds and therefore makes it suitable more for delay tolerant streaming applications. In the second part of the thesis, we propose an application layer rate-distortion control algorithm which provides Optimal Scheduling and Rate Control (OSRC) policies in the average reward sense in order to achieve efficient streaming of video. The Optimal Scheduling (OS) we propose maximizes the probability of successfully on time delivery according to a prespecified set of rate constraints, and different channel conditions by using Markov Decision Process (MDP) models. On the other hand optimal rate control (RC) is achieved by calculating the optimal rate constraint which minimizes the average distortion of a video streaming session by making use of the video distortion model derived for lossy channels and achievable success probabilities provided by the set of optimal schedules. For numerical examples, we focus on an equation-based TCP friendly rate control (TFRC) protocol where transport layer retransmissions are disabled and Fine Granular Scalable (FGS) coded video is used for improved rate adaptation capabilities but with an additional rate distortion penalty. The efficacy of the proposed OSRC algorithm is demonstrated by means of both analytical results and ns-2 simulations.

This research investigates scalable video communications and its applications to video streaming, conferencing and 3DTV. Scalable video coding (SVC) is a layer-based encoding scheme that provides spatial, temporal and quality scalability. Heterogeneity of the Internet and clients' operating environment necessitate the adaptation of media content to ensure a satisfactory multimedia experience. SVC's layer structure allows the extraction of partial bitstreams at reduced spatial, quality and temporal resolutions that adjust the media bitrate at a fine granularity to changes in network state. The main focus of this research work is in developing such extraction algorithms in the context of SVC. Based on a combination of metadata computations and prediction mechanisms, these algorithms evaluate the quality contribution of each layer in the SVC bitstream and make extraction decisions that are aimed at maximizing video quality while operating within the available bandwidth resources. These techniques are applied in two-way interaction and one-way streaming of 2D and 3D content. Depending on the delay tolerance of these applications, rate-distortion optimized extraction algorithms are proposed. For conferencing applications, the extraction decisions are made over single frames and frame pairs due to tight end-to-end delay constraints. The proposed extraction algorithms for 3D content streaming maximize the overall perceived 3D quality based on human stereoscopic perception. When compared to current extraction methods, the new algorithms offer better video quality at a given bitrate while performing lesser number of metadata computations in the post-encoding phase. The solutions proposed for each application achieve the recurring goal of maintaining the best possible level of end-user quality of multimedia experience in spite of network impairments.

Network Utility Maximization (NUM) provides a key conceptual framework to study reward allocation amongst a collection of users/entities in disciplines as diverse as economics, law and engineering. However when the available resources and/or users' utilities vary over time, reward allocations will tend to vary, which in turn may have a detrimental impact on the users' overall satisfaction or quality of experience. In this thesis, we introduce a generalization of the NUM framework which incorporates the detrimental impact of temporal variability in a user's allocated rewards and explicitly incorporates Mean-Variability-Fairness tradeoffs, i.e., tradeoffs amongst the mean and variability in users' reward allocations, as well as fairness across users. We propose a simple online algorithm to realize these tradeoffs, which, under stationary ergodic assumptions, is shown to be asymptotically optimal, i.e., achieves a long term performance equal to that of an offline algorithm with knowledge of the future variability in the system. This substantially extends work on NUM to an interesting class of relevant problems where users/entities are sensitive to temporal variability in their service or allocated rewards. We extend the theoretical framework and tools developed for realizing Mean-Variability-Fairness tradeoffs to develop a simple online algorithm to solve the problem of optimizing video delivery in networks. The tremendous increase in mobile video traffic projected for the future along with insufficiency of available wireless network capacity makes this one of the most important networking problems today. Specifically, we consider a network supporting video clients streaming stored video, and focus on the problem of jointly optimizing network resource allocation and video clients' video quality adaptation. Our objective is to fairly maximize video clients' video Quality of Experience (QoE) realizing Mean-Variability-Fairness tradeoffs, incorporating client preferences on rebuffering time and the cost of video delivery. We present a simple asymptotically optimal online algorithm NOVA (Network Optimization for Video Adaptation) to solve the problem. Our algorithm uses minimal communication, 'distributes' the tasks of network resource allocation to a centralized network controller, and video clients' video quality adaptation to the respective video clients. Further, the quality adaptation is also optimal for standalone video clients, and is an asynchronous algorithm well suited for use in the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) framework. We also extend NOVA for use with more general video QoE models, and study NOVA accounting for practical considerations like time varying number of video clients, sharing with other types of traffic, performance under legacy resource allocation policies, videos with variable sized segments etc. / text

Video srauto šifravimas yra pagrindinis intelektinės nuosavybės užtikrinimo metodas šiuolaikinėse skaitmeninių teisių valdymo sistemose (DRM). Egzistuojantys šifravimo metodai užtikrina labai aukštą apsaugos lygį, bet tuo pat metu reikalauja labai didelių skaičiavimo resursų ir yra sunkiai pritaikomi ribotų skaičiavimo resursų mobiliems vartotojų įrenginiams. Šiame straipsnyje pristatomas dalinis MPEG-2 transporto srauto šifravimo metodas, kuris yra tinkamas tokiems ribotų resursų terminaliniams vartotojų įrenginiams. Siūlomo metodo eksperimentinio įvertinimo rezultatai rodo, kad šifravimo ir dešifravimo laikai, lyginant su standartiniu pilnu šifravimu, yra sumažinami apie 7 kartus, todėl šis metodas yra tinkamas ribotų skaičiavimo resursų dešifravimo įrenginiams. / Video stream encryption is the main method for the protection of intellectual property in modern digital rights management systems (DRM). Existing encryption methods ensure very high protection level of encrypted content, but at the same time are very resources demanding, making them hardly suitable for low processing power mobile end-user devices. This paper presents partial MPEG-2 transport stream encryption method, which is suitable for such low power user terminals. The experimental evaluation of proposed method show that encryption and decryption times, comparing with standard full encryption, are reduced about 7 times, making proposed method a good choice for low processing power decryption devices.

There is an increasing demand for multimedia services in heterogeneous wireless networks. Considering the highly dynamic wireless channels and the relatively large size of the multimedia data, how to support efficient and reliable multimedia delivery is a pressing issue. In this dissertation, we investigate the multimedia delivery algorithms in heterogeneous wireless networks from three different aspects. First, we study the single-flow rate adaptation of video streaming algorithm over multiple wireless interfaces. In order to maintain high video streaming quality while reducing the wireless service cost, the optimal video streaming process with multiple links is formulated as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). The reward function is designed to consider the quality of service (QoS) requirements for video traffic, such as the startup latency, playback fluency, average playback quality, playback smoothness and wireless service cost. 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 and conducted experiments with real video flow. Then, with the multiple multimedia flows competing for limited wireless resources, we propose a utility-based scheduling algorithm for multimedia transmission in Drive-thru Internet. A utility model is devised to map the throughput to user's satisfaction level in terms of multimedia data quality, such as Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of video. The objective of the scheduling problem is to maximize the total utility. Then the optimization problem is formulated as a finite-state decision problem with the assumption that future arrival information is known, and it is solved by a searching algorithm as the benchmark. To obtain a real-time solution, a practical heuristic algorithm based on the concept of utility potential is devised. We further implemented the solution and conducted extensive simulations using NS-3. Finally, the multimedia dissemination problem in large-scale VANETs is investigated. We first utilize a hybrid-network framework to address the mobility and scalability issues in large-scale VANETs content distribution. Then, we formulate a utility-based maximization problem to find the best delivery strategy and select an optimal path for the multimedia data dissemination, where the utility function has taken the delivery delay, the Quality of Services (QoS) and the storage cost into consideration. We obtain the closed-form of the utility function, and then obtain the optimal solution of the problem with the convex optimization theory. Finally, we conducted extensive trace-driven simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm with real traces collected by taxis in Shanghai. In summary, the research outcomes of the dissertation can contribute to three different aspects of multimedia delivery in heterogeneous wireless networks. First, we have proposed a real-time rate adaptation algorithm for video streaming with multiple wireless interfaces, to maintain the high quality while reducing the wireless services cost. Second, we have presented an optimal scheduling algorithm which can maximize the total satisfaction for multimedia transmission in Drive-thru Internet. Third, we have derived the theoretical analysis of the utility functions including delivery delay, QoS and the storage cost, and have obtained an optimal solution for multimedia data dissemination in large-scale VANETs to achieve the highest utility. / Graduate / 0984 / 0544

Αντικείμενο της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η ανάπτυξη μιας δικτυακής πύλης της Θεατρικής Ερασιτεχνικής Ομάδας του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Επόμενος στόχος είναι η σχεδίαση και η υλοποίηση ενός πρωτοτύπου περιβάλλοντος που περιλαμβάνει εργαλεία για την αποθήκευση, διαχείριση και επεξεργασία των δεδομένων από προηγούμενες θεατρικές παραστάσεις. Συγκεκριμένα, το περιβάλλον αυτό θα πρέπει να παρέχει τις παρακάτω λειτουργίες: • ιστορικό παραστάσεων • διαχείριση πληροφορίας • αναζήτηση Για το σκοπό αυτό χρησιμοποιήθηκε το εργαλείο ανάπτυξης εφαρμογών διαδικτύου (PHP), βάση δεδομένων (MySQL) και το εργαλείο διαχείρισης περιεχομένου (Content Management) Mod-X Revolution. / --

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.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Carlos Alberto Kamienski / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia da Informação, 2016. / Atualmente é comum as pessoas se conectarem à Internet em lugares públicos como praças, parques e bibliotecas. Algumas cidades oferecem conexão gratuita por WiFi, onde os usuários utilizam a Internet para diversas finalidades, como buscar informações, trocar mensagens e assistir a mídias digitais. A abordagem deste trabalho é a utilização de streaming de vídeo em praças digitais distribuídas pelas diversas regiões da cidade de São Paulo. Foram realizadas análises de desempenho do serviço prestado à comunidade nas cento e vinte praças do programa "WiFi Livre SP", no período de um ano. Para isso, foram utilizadas métricas que avaliam tanto a Qualidade de Experiência (QoE) do usuário, como a Qualidade de Serviço (QoS) da rede. Como resultado, obteve-se uma nova ferramenta de avaliação da Qualidade de Experiência dos usuários em transmissões de streaming de vídeo, bem como as características das praças em relação aos dados analisados, os quais mostram que, para diferentes praças, dias e níveis de qualidade de vídeo, na maioria das vezes, o uso é satisfatório para determinados fins. / Currently it is common for people to connect to the Internet in public places such as squares, parks and libraries. Some cities offer free connection by WiFi, where users use the Internet for various purposes, such as searching for information, exchange messages and watch digital media. The approach of this work is the use of video streaming in digital squares distributed among different regions of São Paulo. Performance tests of this service to the community were carried out in the 120 squares belonging to the "WiFi Livre SP program" in one year. For this we used metrics that assess both the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the user, such as Quality of Service (QoS) network. As a result we obtained a new evaluation tool of Quality of Experience of users in streaming videos, and the characteristics of the squares on the data analyzed which show that for different places, days and levels of video quality, in most of the time the use is satisfactory for particular purposes.