Video on Demand over the Internet

Trends and challenges

Juergen Ehrensberger (HEIG-VD)
Andrés Revuelta (EIG)
Jean-Roland Schuler (EIA-FR)

November 2006
 Project Vadese
« Video on Demand and Security »
http://www.vadese.org
• Two-years research project
• 4 research groups from 3 different schools
(Fribourg, Geneva, Yverdon)
• Focuses on the needs of VoD services providers
– Quality of Service
– Patching over Peer-to-peer
– Digital Rights Management
 Video over the Internet
31 October 2006:
Swisscom launches Bluewin TV
 Video over the Internet
July 2006:
Deutsche Telekom launches IPTV
 Video over Internet – Market studies
IPTV
« Television broadcast over the Internet access »
– Worldwide market size (Gartner 2006)
• $870 million in 2006
• $13 billion in 2010
Video on Demand
« Download or streaming of movies at any time »
– Worldwide market size (iSuppli 2006)
• 40% growth in 2005
• $2 billion in 2006
• $13 billion in 2010
Another market study...
 Media distribution over the Internet
Media can be transferred by download or streaming

Download
– A file is downloaded from a server to the customer’s equipment
– The media can be consumed only after the download has finished

¾ Simple
¾ Not suited for live content
¾ Long waiting time

Streaming
– A continuous media flow of packets is transferred from a server to the customer
– The customer consumes the media simultaneously with the transfer

¾ Suited for live content

¾ Technically challenging
Network scenario
 Quality of Service
• The main challenge of streaming media over this
Internet is to obtain a sufficient Quality of Service :

« QoS is the collective effect of

service performance which determines
the degree of satisfaction of a
user of a service »
(ITU-T Rec. E-800)
 Measurable performance parameters
Throughput
– ‘Speed’ of the transmission, bits per second received
Packet loss rate
– Percentage of packets lost inside the network
Network delay
– Delay between the sending of a packet at the source and the
reception by the receiver
Delay variation
– Changes of network delay between successive packets
 Throughput
• Media streams have an inherent bitrate that has to be provided by
the network
Throughput requirements
Codec Quality Bitrate
MPEG-2 TV quality 1 – 4 Mb/s
MPEG-4 AVC TV quality 768 kb/s
MPEG-4 AVC HDTV 5 – 6 Mb/s

Transmission capacity
Network Capacity MPEG-4 TV flows
ADSL 3 Mb/s 4 flows
Ethernet 100 Mb/s 130 flows
ISPs / Internet 10 Gb/s 13’000 flows
 Packet loss
• What happens if there is too much traffic in the network?
– The Internet is a network of transmission links,
connected to routers
 Packet loss
• What happens if there is too much traffic in the network?
– Each router receives traffic from several input links and
forwards the packet to output links
 Packet loss
• What happens if there is too much traffic in the network?
– If the output link is occupied, packets have to wait for
transmission in a queue
 Packet loss
• Transmission queues on routers are causing
packet loss and delays
Measurement over low-capacity access links
ADSL (3Mb/s) Access 100 Mb/s

Home network
ISP
Router
Internet HEIG-VD

Packet loss, delays

¾Up to 5% packet loss

¾20ms one-way delay
 Effect of packet loss
on video quality
Example: Example:
– 1% loss – 5% loss
– MPEG-2 – MPEG-2
– No error concealment – No error concealment
 Effect of network delay
• Network delay is not critical for
non-interactive applications
– Typically network delay is below 1 seconds
– User may tolerate several seconds of delay

Possible problems
– « Roberto Baggio Effect »
– Channel switching delay
 Delay variation
• Media playback requires a constant flow of data
• The packets of the media flow experience different network delays

• A playout buffer compensates the delay variations

• Half-filled upon start of the transmission (« Buffering... »)
¾ Increases network delay
– Delay variations should be small to keep playout buffer small
 Current challenges
Insufficient QoS over ADSL and CaTV
– Overdimensioning or VDSL
– QoS mechanisms in the ISP network
– QoS mechanisms on user’s Set-Top Box
High cost for streaming individual flows
– « Patching » of video flows
– Peer-to-peer distribution of flows
Digital Rights Management
 Overdimensioning of the access link

• ADSL link with 3 Mb/s

• MPEG-4 AVC video with TV quality at 768 kb/s
¾ Additional traffic (Web, E-mail, downloads) may deteriorate the video quality

Dynamic overdimensioning Very High Bitrate DSL (VDSL2)

• ISP dynamically increases ADSL capacity
during video streaming
– Should provide sufficient capacity for
video and additional downloads
Problem: traffic demand adapts to available
capacity
• Provides capacity of 20 Mb/s (over 1500m)
• Allows simultaneous transmission of 2
HDTV channels
• Problem: high investment required to
upgrade the access network
 QoS mechanisms in the ISP network
• Even over ADSL, a sufficient QoS can be provided using QoS mechanisms
• Idea: give video flow priority over other traffic
– Video flow gets sufficient capacity to avoid packet loss on the ADSL link
– Other traffic (Web, download) is still possible, but slower
 QoS mechanisms in the ISP network
• Even over ADSL, a sufficient QoS can be provided using QoS mechanisms
• Idea: give video flow priority over other traffic
– Video flow gets sufficient capacity to avoid packet loss on the ADSL link
– Other traffic (Web, download) is still possible, but slower
 QoS mechanisms on user’s Set-Top Box
• Solution developed in Vadese
• Modifications of the access network are costly
• Service providers do not own the access network
• How can a service provider offer sufficient QoS?
– Use QoS mechanisms on the Set-Top Box
¾ Has to control traffic after it has crossed the ADSL link!
 QoS mechanisms on user’s Set-Top Box
• Non-video traffic mainly uses TCP
– TCP adapts to network congestion, detected by packet loss
• Control queue length on ISP router from Set-Top Box
– « Split » Advanced Queue Management
 High cost for Video-on-Demand
• In VoD, customers access videos at different moments
• The simple approach to start a new flow for each user is not
economical
– Example : access link at 1 Gb/s
¾Only 200 simultaneous HDTV flows (at 5 Mb/s)
¾Cost of $1 per video, only for transmission
 Near Video-on-Demand with Multicast
• Solution
– A new flow for the same video starts every n minutes
– Similar to a TV broadcast that repeats every n minutes
– Flow is efficiently transmitted via multicast
• Multicast is only feasible for network operators
 Video patching with Peer-to-peer
• Solution developed in Vadese
• Allows true Video-on-Demand
• Can be used by service providers without their own multicast network
• Idea of patching:
– A customer who already receives a video can relay the flow to a new customer
– The missing part of the video is temporarily ‘patched’ from the server
 True Video-on-Demand with Multicast
• Possible alternative to Peer-to-peer transmission
• Combines Multicast and Patching to achieve true Video-on-Demand
• Solution
– A new multicast flow for the same video starts every n minutes
– When a new customer arrives, it joins an existing multicast session
– The missing first minutes of the movie is patched by a short-lived patching flow

Joins multicast
 Conclusion
Project Vadese - Video on Demand and Security
– Focuses on the needs of VoD services providers
• Quality of Service
• Patching over P2P
• Digital Rights Management
– Technologies will be integrated in a Set-Top Box
– Possible valorizations
• Follow-up projects with commercial partners
• Intellectual property
• Commercialization of some of the technologies