Cloud-supported Adaptive Streaming of Videos

互联网流量以每年21%的速度增长，预计到2018年，视频流量将占全球流量的90%。本课题的目标是为新型多媒体应用设计算法和系统，提高多媒体分发系统的质量、效率和可扩展性，以满足快速增长的需求。研究新型多媒体内容传输，提高超高清、互动式、多视点、平铺式和3D视频质量。目前的自适应流媒体系统存在不公平、不稳定和利用率不足的问题，而这些问题将随着更丰富的多组件视频内容和移动连接设备数量的增长而加剧，其中大多数设备具有多媒体功能，预计到2019年将达到115亿台。为了满足快速增长的需求，当前的4G和未来的5G无线网络以及新的HTTP 2.0标准引入了复杂的架构和算法特性。我们将分析这些特性对自适应多媒体流系统的影响，并开发算法，以最大限度地利用蜂窝网络，提高通过此类网络传输的多组件视频的质量，并最大限度地减少参与视频会话的移动设备的能耗。此外，我们将开发新的基于云的算法来处理、适应和存储丰富的多组件视频的大型数据集。

Internet traffic has been growing by 21% annually and it is predicted that up to 90% of global traffic will be video by 2018. The goal of this project is to design algorithms and systems for novel multimedia applications and to improve the quality, efficiency, and scalability of multimedia distribution systems to meet the fast-growing demands. We will investigate the delivery of new types of multimedia content and improve the quality of ultra high-definition, interactive, multi-view, tiled, and 3D videos. Current adaptive streaming systems suffer from unfairness, instability, and under-utilization and these problems will be exacerbated by richer multi-component video content and growth in the number of mobile-connected devices, most of them multimedia-capable, which is forecast to be 11.5 billion by 2019. To meet the rapidly increasing demand, current 4G and future 5G wireless networks and the new HTTP 2.0 standard introduce complex architectural and algorithmic features. We will analyze the impact of these features on adaptive multimedia streaming systems and develop algorithms to maximize the utilization of cellular networks, improve the quality of multi-component videos delivered over such networks, and minimize the energy consumption of mobile devices participating in video sessions. Furthermore, we will develop novel cloud-based algorithms for processing, adapting, and storing large datasets of rich multi-component videos. Cisco Canada, a key player in the video industry and a partner on this project, observes the problems described above in real deployments and is eager to find solutions for them. We will work with Cisco Canada to design and implement novel algorithms and systems for future cloud-supported multimedia systems, which will offer feature-rich video content to large-scale heterogeneous users over wired and 4G/5G wireless networks. The proposed research will extend Cisco Canada's product portfolio and will also create beneficial technologies for Canadian industry in general.