The impact of video-quality-level switching on user quality of experience in dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP

Abstract

Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) has become a promising solution for video delivery services over the Internet in the last few years. Currently, several video content providers use the DASH solution to improve the users' quality of experience (QoE) by automatically switching video quality levels (VQLs) according to the network status. However, the frequency of switching events between different VQLs during a video streaming session may disturb the user's visual attention and therefore affect the user's QoE. As one of the first attempts to characterize the impact of VQL switching on the user's QoE, we carried out a series of subjective tests, which show that there is a correlation between the user QoE and the frequency, type, and temporal location of the switching events. We propose a novel parameter named switching degradation factor (SDF) to capture such correlation. A DASH algorithm with SDF parameter is compared with the same algorithm without SDF. The results demonstrate that the SDF parameter significantly improves the user's QoE, especially when network conditions vary frequently.

On subjective quality assessment of adaptive video streaming via crowdsourcing and laboratory based experiments

“…Moreover, stalling in the playback of videos was observed to be the least preferable. In [31] it was studied how spatial and temporal quality switching had different impact on the QoE and which features of the switching that were most relevant in relation to the QoE. The results reported in [42] investigated the optimum number of coding quality levels that could be used in an adaptive video system by studying the just noticeable difference levels that exist in the quality range of video content.…”

QoE Management of Multimedia Streaming Services in Future Networks: A Tutorial and Survey

“…Multimedia streaming services by OTTP are using HTTP adaptive video streaming based on the MPEG-DASH standard introduced in section III-A. While the MPEG-DASH standard can provide excellent video quality to the end-users, there are some issues when multiple clients are competing for the shared limited resources leading to QoE unfairness, video instability and under-utilization of the network resources [105], [106]. To overcome these challenges, the MPEG-SAND standard has been proposed recently with the aim to enhance the delivery of DASH contents, thanks to its ability to provide information of the network, servers, and the streaming DASH clients in real-time.…”

Quality of experience and access network traffic management of HTTP adaptive video streaming

“…Reference [144] followed a similar approach but utilized data mining. Reference [145] considered frequency, type, and temporal location of the quality adaptation. Reference [146] used a histogram of per-segment quality scores and the histogram of quality gradients to model the overall QoE.…”