No abstract

Abstract-Multimediasynchronization involves a temporal relationship between audio and visual media components. The presentation of "in-sync" data streams is essential to achieve a natural impression, as "out-of-sync" effects are often associated with user quality of experience (QoE) decrease. Recently, multi-sensory media (mulsemedia) has been demonstrated to provide a highly immersive experience for its users. Unlike traditional multimedia, mulsemedia consists of other media types (i.e., haptic, olfaction, taste, etc.) in addition to audio and visual content. Therefore, the goal of achieving high quality mulsemedia transmission is to present no or little synchronization errors between the multiple media components. In order to achieve this ideal synchronization, there is a need for comprehensive knowledge of the synchronization requirements at the user interface. This paper presents the results of a subjective study carried out to explore the temporal boundaries within which haptic and air-flow media objects can be successfully synchronized with video media. Results show that skews between sensorial media and multimedia might still give the effect that the mulsemedia sequence is "in-sync" and provide certain constraints under which synchronization errors might be tolerated. The outcomes of the paper are used to provide recommendations for mulsemedia service providers in order for their services to be associated with acceptable user experience levels, e.g. haptic media could be presented with a delay of up to 1 s behind video content, while air-flow media could be released either 5 s ahead of or 3 s behind video content.

User quality of experience (QoE) is of fundamental importance in multimedia applications and has been extensively studied for decades. However, user QoE in the context of the emerging multiple-sensorial media (mulsemedia) services, which involve different media components than the traditional multimedia applications, were not comprehensively studied. This paper presents the results of subjective tests which have investigated user perception of mulsemedia content. In particular, the impact of intensity of certain mulsemedia components including haptic and air-flow on user-perceived experience are studied. Results demonstrate that by making use of mulsemedia the overall user enjoyment levels increased by up to 77%.

Recently, multimedia streaming services over IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks have increased dramatically. This results in manifold increase in the bandwidth requirement, especially for high-quality multimedia services. Given the bandwidth constraint in the wireless networks, one of the most critical factors in improving the end-to-end performance of multimedia application is the fast and accurate estimation of bandwidth. This paper proposes a novel bandwidth estimation algorithm, iBE. The significant feature of iBE is that it relies on multimedia packets only from the application layer. In addition, iBE recognizes the dynamic fluctuations of the wireless channel quickly, which in-turn enables iBE to be used for real-time services. The experimental results demonstrate that the accuracy of the bandwidth estimated by iBE is significantly superior to other methods like Spruce. Secondly, even in high traffic conditions, the bandwidth estimated by iBE is very close to the actual measured bandwidth, unlike the other state-of-the-art methods.

Abstract-Traditional video sequences make use of both visual images and audio tracks which are perceived by human eyes and ears, respectively. In order to present better ultra-reality virtual experience, the comprehensive human sensations (e.g. olfaction, haptic, gustatory, etc) needed to be exploited. In this paper, a multiple sensorial media (mulsemedia) delivery system is introduced to deliver multimedia sequences integrated with multiple media components which engage three or more of human senses such as sight, hearing, olfaction, haptic, gustatory, etc. Three sensorial effects (i.e. haptic, olfaction, and air-flowing) are selected for the purpose of demonstration. Subjective test is conducted to analyze the user perceived quality of experience of the mulsemedia service. It is concluded that the mulsemedia sequences can partly mask the decreased movie quality. Additionally the most preferable sensorial effect is haptic, followed by air-flowing and olfaction.