Tag Archive for: QoE

IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM)

December 4-8, 2022 |Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Conference Website

Authors: Reza Farahani (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria), Abdelhak Bentaleb (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Ekrem Cetinkaya (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria), Roger Zimmermann (National University of Singapore, Singapore), and Hermann Hellwagner (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria)

Abstract: a cost-effective, scalable, and flexible architecture that supports low latency and high-quality live video streaming is still a challenge for Over-The-Top (OTT) service providers. To cope with this issue, this paper leverages Peer-to-Peer (P2P), Content Delivery Network (CDN), edge computing, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and distributed video transcoding paradigms to introduce a hybRId P2P-CDN arcHiTecture for livE video stReaming (RICHTER). We first introduce RICHTER’s multi-layer architecture and design an action tree that considers all feasible resources provided by peers, edge, and CDN servers for serving peer requests with minimum latency and maximum quality. We then formulate the problem as an optimization model executed at the edge of the network. We present an Online Learning (OL) approach that leverages an unsupervised Self Organizing Map (SOM) to (i) alleviate the time complexity issue of the optimization model and (ii) make it a suitable solution for large-scale scenarios by enabling decisions for groups of requests instead of for single requests. Finally, we implement the RICHTER framework, conduct our experiments on a large-scale cloud-based testbed including 350 HAS players, and compare its effectiveness with baseline systems. The experimental results illustrate that RICHTER outperforms baseline schemes in terms of users’ Quality of Experience (QoE), latency, and network utilization, by at least 59%, 39%, and 70%, respectively.

Hadi

Title: On The Impact of Viewing Distance on Perceived Video Quality

Link: IEEE Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP 2021) 5-8 December 2021, Munich, Germany

Authors: Hadi Amirpour (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Raimund Schatz (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria), Mohammad Ghanbari (School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, UK), and Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt)

Abstract: Due to the growing importance of optimizing quality and efficiency of video streaming delivery, accurate assessment of user perceived video quality becomes increasingly relevant. However, due to the wide range of viewing distances encountered in real-world viewing settings, actually perceived video quality can vary significantly in everyday viewing situations. In this paper, we investigate and quantify the influence of viewing distance on perceived video quality.  A subjective experiment was conducted with full HD sequences at three different stationary viewing distances, with each video sequence being encoded at three different quality levels. Our study results confirm that the viewing distance has a significant influence on the quality assessment. In particular, they show that an increased viewing distance generally leads to an increased perceived video quality, especially at low media encoding quality levels. In this context, we also provide an estimation of potential bitrate savings that knowledge of actual viewing distance would enable in practice.
Since current objective video quality metrics do not systematically take into account viewing distance, we also analyze and quantify the influence of viewing distance on the correlation between objective and subjective metrics. Our results confirm the need for distance-aware objective metrics when accurate prediction of perceived video quality in real-world environments is required.