NeTS: Small: Video-Aware Network Transport + Network-Aware Video Coding

该项目将通过跨越视频编码和计算机网络系统的研究领域，为互联网视频流建立新的基础技术。我们的目标是消除视频故障和停滞，并建立抽象概念，以实现“万维网视频”，任何人都可以使用超链接在网上引用、引用、摘录和编辑教育视频和其他视频。该项目将开发一个开源的视频流应用程序，名为紫花苜蓿。与传统系统(如Netflix、YouTube)相似的是，它将通过HTTP从Web服务器获取并播放编码视频。但与这些“自适应比特率流”系统不同的是，紫花苜蓿根本不会有编码视频“比特率”或“流”的概念。取而代之的是，每一帧都将是质量级别之间可能的切换点，而播放器的工作将是在运行时规划通过视频的最佳逐帧路径，以最大化体验质量指标。这样做的目的是让视频编码器尽可能地“愚蠢”，并在回放时做出大多数码率控制决定。更广泛的影响：强劲的视频流和“万维网视频”将成为学生学习和创建在线视频课程的直接倍增，特别是在世界上互联网连接较差的地区。该项目计划与在线课程提供商合作，测试紫花苜蓿技术，并使用它在适当的课堂上允许学生主导的在线视频编辑。此外，该项目将包括一个演示部分，将向公众播放美国广播电视台，教育公众有关视频流媒体技术的知识，并招募参与者，以努力更好地了解影响在线视频“体验质量”的因素。

This project will build new foundational technology for Internet video streaming, by spanning the research areas of video-coding and computer-networking systems. The goal is to get rid of video glitches and stalls, and to build the abstractions to enable a "World Wide Web of video," where anybody can use hyperlinks to reference, quote, excerpt, and edit educational and other videos online. The project will develop an open-source video-streaming application, to be called Alfalfa. Alfalfa will be similar to traditional systems (e.g. Netflix, YouTube) in that it will fetch and play encoded video from a Web server via HTTP. But unlike these "adaptive-bitrate streaming" systems, Alfalfa will not have a concept of a coded video "bitrate" or "stream" at all. Instead, each frame will be a possible switching point between quality levels, and the player's job will be to plan, at runtime, the best frame-by-frame path through the video that maximizes a quality-of-experience metric. The intention is to make the video encoder as "dumb" as possible and to make most rate-control decisions at playback time. Broader Impacts: Robust video streaming and the "World Wide Web of video" will serve as a direct multiplier for students taking and creating online video courses, especially in regions of the world with poor Internet connectivity. The project plans to collaborate with providers of online courses to test the Alfalfa technology and use it to allow student-driven online video editing in appropriate classes. In addition, the project will include a demonstration component that will stream U.S. broadcast television stations to members of the public, educating the public about video-streaming technology and enlisting participants in an effort to better understand the factors that influence the "quality of experience" of online video.