Scheduling of optimal DASH streaming

Abstract

DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) is now the most popular standard in video streaming. For supporting DASH video transmission over residential networks with small bandwidth variation (such as DSL based network for IPTV), we design an optimal transmission schedule, L2H. Given a transmission rate and an initial delay, the schedule can optimize the QoE (quality of experience) metrics such as rebuffering, lexicographically maximal resolution, number of rate switching events, and smoothness of the rate change. We further present L2HB for considering usage of the system buffer when applying the L2H. L2HB comes up with its benefit when comparing with other research work by objective QoE evaluations. Besides, by introducing the system buffer size constraint, the proposed algorithm can control the transmission schedule to let highest-resolution segments appear as soon as possible for prompting the users to stay tuned.