A cross-layered network-adaptive HD video streaming in digital A/V home network: Channel monitoring and video rate adaptation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a cross-layered network-adaptive high definition (HD) video streaming system using a sender-driven wireless channel monitoring over the wireless local area network (WLAN) for the digital audiolvisual (AIV) home network. For the wireless channel monitoring, an intelligent intermediate sender with an embedded wireless access point estimates the time-varying channel condition based on the observed medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) statistics. The observed channel condition is then utilized to dynamically guide the network-adaptive control of temporally-layered video flow (i.e., video frame rate control). For an implementation of the proposed system, a frame-based prioritized packetization using a real-time parsing module of the MPEG-2 TS stream is nicely provided. Various evaluation results over an IEEE 802.11a WLAN testbed are provided to verify the intended quality of service (QoS) adaptation capability. Experimental results showed that the proposed system can mitigate the quality degradation of video streaming due to the fluctuations of time-varying channel.