Video Streaming: Then, Now, Future

I'm happy to share my slides from my public/inaugural lecture at the University of Klagenfurt on June 5, 2022.

• Title: "Video Streaming: Then, Now, Future"
• June 5, 2024, 17:00, University of Klagenfurt, Hörsaal 2

In my public lecture, I provide insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. I'm also presenting provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. I conclude by looking at future challenges and invite the audience to join in a discussion (e.g., in the comments below).

Video Streaming: Then, Now, and in the Future from Alpen-Adria-Universität

Video Developer Report 2019

... and Bitmovin did it again; published the 2019 Video Developer Report last week. I've briefly reported about it last year here. Interestingly, this year 542 people from 108 countries participated (vs. 456 from over 67 countries last year).

The biggest challenges seem to be latency (54%) and playback on all devices (41%). Other challenges (>20%) are related to DRM, CDN, user engagement with video, and ads in general.

Last year I've also shared the codec usage and it's probably interesting to compare these numbers with this year's results as shown below. Interestingly, the numbers (for 'planning to implement') are a bit lower compared to last year which could be explained by a more conservative approach from developers or simply by the fact that more people responded to the survey with a greater diversity in terms of different countries.

Current Video Codec Usage and Plans to Implement in next 12 Months.

The actual video codec usage compares to last year's report as follows: AVC (-1), HEVC (+1), VP9 (+/- 0), AV1 (+1).

Another interesting aspect is the usage of streaming formats and plans to implement them within the next 12 months as shown below. Comparing with last year's report (available here), we can observe the following major changes: HLS (-3), MPEG-DASH (-3), RTMP (-2), Smooth Streaming (+2), Progressive Streaming (-1), MPEG-CMAF (+2), HDS (-4).

Current Streaming Formats and Plans to Implement in next 12 Months.

In general, one can observe that the adoption of new formats are happening at a slower pace than expected and I am wondering what this means for the new video coding formats coming up like VVC et al. (note: these are results from a public survey with different participants compared to last years which need to be taken into account when comparing results over years).

For more details, the full report can be downloaded for free from here.

Streaming Movies to Playstation 3

The New York Times reports that in the future - next month - movies will be streamed to Sony's Playstation 3 (PS3). The movies (and TV shows) are actually coming from Netflix giving this company another distribution channel. Therefore, Sony offers its own Internet movie store available (movies for about $3-4) and in order to access the Netflix service a monthly subscription of $8.99 or more is needed. The actual implementation is not very elegant as it comes as a "DVD-by-mail". That is, one needs a special disk from Netflix (free of charge) and users need to pop it into their PS3 each time they would like to access the service. This situation should change once the PS3 software gets updated which will happen next year.

Anyway, it seems that the PS3 is becoming yet another STB-ish device... excellent!

P2P Streaming Protocols at IETF v2

I recently blogged about P2P Streaming Protocols at IETF. Now the slides of this bar BoF meeting are available here. The minutes one can find on the list archives for those who are not subscribed. It is difficult to draw real conclusions at this point in time as much things are not yet clear enough. From the meeting minutes one can extract "still have uncertainties of the goal of PPSP", "PPSP should "narrow" its scope", and "proceed with a proper BOF at the next IETF". Thus, it is suggested to work "on an architecture document covering different components and analyze each components wrt to the work done or current being work upon by other WG in IETF".

P2P Streaming Protocols at IETF

It seems that the IETF is starting to form a P2P Streaming Protocols activity as there will be a BoF meeting during 74th IETF in San Francisco in March 2009. The agenda covers the following items:

• Problem Statement
• Protocol Requirements
• Protocol Analysis of PPlive and PPStream by Interent Measurement
  
• Introduction of Distributed Services Network, a vision of making PPSP and P2PSIP into reality

Furthermore, it seems that China Mobile and Huawei Technologies are the driving forces behind this exciting activity. There's also an email reflector to which one can subscribe here. I've just subscribed an I'm eager to learn more about what's going on there...

How to Write an RTP Payload Format

draft-ietf-avt-rtp-howto-06

Abstract: This document contains information on how to best write an RTP payload format. Reading tips, design practices, and practical tips on how to quickly and with good results produce an RTP payload format specification. A template is also included with instructions that can be used when writing an RTP payload format.

If you're looking forward to write an RTP payload format, I guess this document may be helpful unless you're an IETF RTP playload format guru ;-) If you're not sure, here's the definition of an RTP playload format:

"The RTP Payload format specifies how a specific media format is put into the RTP Payloads. Thus enabling the format to be used in RTP sessions."

Overall, a useful document and check out the references section for a list of existing payload formats.

Not All Packets Are Equal

... is the title of a IEEE Internet Computing article comprising two parts.

Part 1 - Streaming Video Coding and SLA Requirements - describes the some Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics (i.e., delay, jitter, packet loss) and details some of the coding principles adopted in MPEG standards (and btw. others): subsampling, intra coding, inter coding, blocks, macroblocks, slices, frames, group of pictures (GoPs), decoding order vs. transmission order, and MPEG encapuslation within IP.

Part 2 - The Impact of Network Packet Loss on Video Quality - highlights the impact that different durations of IP packet loss have on the Quality of Experience (QoE) for IP-based video streaming services. It describe the visual impairments that result from such packet losses and present the results of testing and analysis to compare impairments for different loss durations for both MPEG-2-encoded standard and high-definition services.

Both arcticles are a very good starting point to get an overview of video coding and how to stream video data over IP-based networks. However, it mainly focuses on MPEG-2 and only mentions the current state-of-the-art codec, namely Advanced Video Coding (AVC). There are already papers available that investigate the impact of packet loss on video quality for AVC.

Nevertheless, the two papers are worth reading, written in an easy-to-read style, and also suitable for an audience not so familiar with video coding and transmission issues. Finally, it seems that there's another article planned in this series as indicated in the last sentence:

"In a future article, we hope to compare different network technology approaches for minimizing and recovering from video packet loss."

I'm looking forward to that ... (and please, bring more on AVC) -- thanks!

References

• J. Greengrass, J. Evans, A. C. Begen, "Not All Packets Are Equal, Part I: Streaming Video Coding and SLA Requirements," IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 70-75, Jan./Feb. 2009
• J. Greengrass, J. Evans, A. C. Begen, "Not All Packets Are Equal, Part 2: The Impact of Network Packet Loss on Video Quality," IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 74-82, Mar./Apr. 2009