TCP-friendly Internet video with smooth and fast rate adaptation and network-aware error control

Abstract

A solution for Internet video streaming with two major components is examined in this paper. First, a new rate adaptation mechanism called the smooth and fast rate adaptation mechanism (SFRAM) is developed based on the transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput equation. SFRAM not only achieves TCP-friendliness but also provides a smooth and fast rate adaptation for transmitted video. By adaptively averaging measurements such as the round-trip time and the packet loss rate over a suitable window, SFRAM mitigates fluctuation that is undesirable for video transmission. The adopted weighting scheme enables the response in a fast manner only for distinct network variations so that the overall network utilization is improved while sustaining end-to-end video quality. When integrated with active routing support such as random early detection and explicit congestion notification, SFRAM provides an even better performance. Second, an adaptive network-aware error control is proposed to alleviate error propagation due to packet loss. Based on SFRAM's capturing of distinct network variations, various source-level error control options such as reference picture selection, video redundancy coding and I-MB refresh are dynamically selected. Extensive experiments by using both the ns-2 network simulator and the real Internet environment are performed to evaluate the dynamic behavior of SFRAM.