Encoding Bitrate Optimization Using Playback Statistics for HTTP-based Adaptive Video Streaming
This work addresses bandwidth efficiency for video streaming providers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing adaptive streaming methods.
The paper tackles the problem of optimizing encoded bitrates for HTTP adaptive video streaming to reduce bandwidth usage while maintaining video quality. The proposed method saves 9.6% of bandwidth compared to state-of-the-art approaches in simulations and real-world experiments.
HTTP video streaming is in wide use to deliver video over the Internet. With HTTP adaptive steaming, a video playback dynamically selects a video stream from a pre-encoded representation based on available bandwidth and viewport (screen) size. The viewer's video quality is therefore influenced by the encoded bitrates. We minimize the average delivered bitrate subject to a quality lower bound on a per-chunk basis by modeling the probability that a player selects a particular encoding. Through simulation and real-world experiments, the proposed method saves 9.6% of bandwidth while average delivered video quality comparing with state of the art while keeping average delivered video quality.