Adaptation strategies for MGS scalable video streaming

Abstract

An adaptive streaming framework consists of a video codec that can produce video encoded at a variety of rates, a transport protocol that supports an effective rate/congestion control mechanism, and an adaptation strategy in order to match the video source rate to the available network throughput. The main parameters of the adaptation strategy are encoder configuration, video extraction method, determination of video extraction rate, send rate control, retransmission of lost packets, decoder buffer status, and packetization method. This paper proposes optimal adaptation strategies, in terms of received video quality and used network resources, at the codec and network levels using a medium grain scalable (MGS) video codec and two transport protocols with built-in congestion control, TCP and DCCP. Key recommendations are presented to obtain the best results in adaptive video streaming using TCP or DCCP based on extensive experimental results over the Internet.