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QoMEX’19: Tile-based Streaming of 8K Omnidirectional Video: Subjective and Objective QoE Evaluation

Autor: Raimund Schatz (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology), Anatoliy Zabrovskiy (Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Bitmovin Inc.)

Abstract: Omnidirectional video (ODV) streaming applications are becoming increasingly popular. They enable a highly immersive experience as the user can freely choose her/his field of view within the 360-degree environment. Current deployments are fairly simple but viewport-agnostic which inevitably results in high storage/bandwidth requirements and low Quality of Experience (QoE). A promising solution is referred to as tile- based streaming which allows to have higher quality within the user’s viewport while quality outside the user’s viewport could be lower. However, empirical QoE assessment studies in this domain are still rare. Thus, this paper investigates the impact of different tile-based streaming approaches and configurations on the QoE of ODV. We present the results of a lab-based subjective evaluation in which participants evaluated 8K omnidirectional video QoE as influenced by different (i) tile-based streaming approaches (full vs. partial delivery), (ii) content types (static vs. moving camera), and (iii) tile encoding quality levels determined by different quantization parameters. Our experimental setup is characterized by high reproducibility since relevant media delivery aspects (including the user’s head movements and dynamic tile quality adaptation) are already rendered into the respective processed video sequences. Additionally, we performed a complementary objective evaluation of the different test sequences focusing on bandwidth efficiency and objective quality metrics. The results are presented in this paper and discussed in detail which confirm that tile-based streaming of ODV improves visual quality while reducing bandwidth requirements.

Acknowledgment: This work was supported in part by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under the Next Generation Video Streaming project “PROMETHEUS”.

Link: QoMEX_19__Tile_based_ODV_Streaming_QoE_camready.pdf

June 12, 2019/by Rudolf Messner

Announcement, DPS, Pressemitteilungen, Research Areas

Prof. Radu Prodan is the Program Chair for ISPDC 2019

Prof. Radu Prodan is the Program Chair for ISPDC 2019, the 18th IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing, to be held at Amsterdam (Netherlands).

May 31, 2019/by Roland Mathá

Announcement, DPS, Pressemitteilungen, Research Areas

ITEC representation @IPDPS 2019, 33rd IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium

The prestigious 33rd IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2019 held at Rio de Janerio, Brazil (May 20-24 2019) found representation from ITEC department at UNI-KLU in a number of activities including paper and poster presentations, panel discussions etc. led by Prof. Radu Prodan, Josef Hammer, and Nishant Saurabh.

1. Panel discussion @PAISE 2019, the collocated workshop @IPDPS.

Prof. Radu Prodan led the panel discussion on emerging Blockchain, Parallel AI and Edge computing technology and paradigms at PAISE (Parallel AI and Systems for the Edge), collocated workshop at the prestigious 33rd IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2019 along with some renowned researchers including Pete Beckman (Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago), Sandip Kundu (National Science Foundation), Tal Ben-Nun (ETH Zürich), and Ilkay Altintas (Chief Data Science Officer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center), moderated by Rajesh Sankaran (Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago). Prof. Prodan highlighted disruptive scenarios, typically posed with the arrival of next generation technologies and introduced EU H2020 project ARTICONF coordinated by UNI-KLU to the audience in the light of the panel topics.

2. Workshop paper presentation @PAISE 2019, the collocated workshop @IPDPS to be published in IPDPSW proceedings.

Josef Hammer presented the workshop paper “Transparent Access to 5G Edge Computing Services” accepted for publication at 33rd IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium workshop, PAISE 2019.

Authors: Josef Hammer, Philipp Moll and Hermann Hellwagner

3. Conference paper presentation @IPDPS 2019 Cloud Computing session to be published in IPDPS proceedings.

Nishant Saurabh presented the conference paper “Semantics-aware Virtual Machine Image Management in IaaS Clouds” accepted for publication at 33rd IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium , IPDPS 2019.

Authors: Nishant Saurabh (Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt), Julian Remmers (University of Innsbruck), Dragi Kimovski (Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt), Radu Prodan (Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt), Jorge G. Barbosa (LIACC, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto).

4. Poster presentation @IPDPS 2019 PhD Forum.

The ITEC representative members Josef Hammer and Nishant Saurabh presented respective posters amongst distinguished researchers. While, Josef’s poster titled “Transparent Access to 5G Edge Computing Services”, Nishant presented the poster on “Towards a semantic-centric VMI repository management”.

5. Session Chair @IPDPS 2019, Scheduling and Load balancing session.

Prof. Radu Prodan chaired the Scheduling and Load balancing session, which observed some interesting research works from all around the globe.

ipdps-2019

May 30, 2019/by Roland Mathá

MMC

Talk of Philipp Moll on RAFNET Workshop 2019

Philipp Moll presented the paper “Distributing the Game State of Online Games: Towards an NDN Version of Minecraft” on the 6th International Workshop on Research Advancements in Future Networking Technologies. The Workshop was held in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Communications 2019 in Shanghai.

Authors: Philipp Moll, Sebastian Theuermann, Hermann Hellwagner (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Jeff Burke (UCLA)

Abstract: Online games nowadays play an undeniably important role in the entertainment industry. The continuously increasing popularity of these services goes hand in hand with increased complexity of technical challenges. The networking part of current games relies on decades-old technologies, which were never intended to be used for today’s large-scale online games. Replacing the currently used connection-oriented networking approach by a content-centric architecture could yield advantages reaching beyond only avoiding inefficiencies found in IP-based online games. We propose a concept for a distributed Minecraft architecture, making use of these advantages by utilizing Named Data Networking (NDN) as the architectural basis. Our design decisions were guided by the insights we gained from examining Minecraft as a representative of current online games.

May 28, 2019/by Rudolf Messner