Network-adaptive video coding and transmission

Abstract

In visual communication, the conditions of the network, such as the delay, delay jitter, and the packet loss rate, have strong impact to the video quality. It would be useful if there is a feedback channel from the client to the server to indicate the network conditions periodically, and a smart mechanism for coding and transmitting video that can adapt to these conditions. For example, when the network is congested, instead of sending all the packets that have a high probability of being lost in the network, we can selectively drop some packets at the server (such as dropping packets for bidirectional-predicted frames). While intuitive, it is difficult to illustrate the effectiveness of adaptation using a single video server-client pair. A practical simulation would require multiple video servers and clients, and only then the benefit of adaptation will show up as advantageous utilization of network resources to provide good video quality. In this paper, we will introduce our methods of adaptation and present experimental and simulation results.