Streaming Video

by

Alan Barker Antony Voznesensky Chris Harris

What is Streaming?

 Real-time transmission of video + audio signals over the Internet  CNN sample stream

Benefits of Streaming

 Companies  Consumers  Academics

Consumers

 HDTV  Digital Cinema  Video on demand

The American Past Time:

Television

Digital TV

“As the 500 channel universe becomes a reality, broadcasters are looking for ways to ensure viewer retention and enable new viewer acquisition. Digital television allows them to accomplish this by not only delivering better video and audio quality to their viewers, but by also allowing them to differentiate their service offerings through combining interactive television applications with traditional television programming content.”

What is Digital TV?

The digital reception of a program on a television monitor.

Advantages of Digital TV

 Greater Picture Quality from digital signal HDTV  Watch any program at any time, without interruptions. TIVO  Interactive TV--Internet Capabilities, E Commerce opportunities from your TV Ultimate TV.

Interactive TV

 2.2 million households are projected to have the

interactive TV service

by the end of the year [Forrester Research] Nearly one-quarter of all U.S. households will be using Interactive Television by 2004 [Forrester Research] 

Interactive television advertising revenues

are expected to reach $11 billion in the U.S. by 2004 [Forrester Research] 

Interactive television advertising revenues

are expected to reach $11 billion in the U.S. by 2004 [Forrester Research] 

Three-quarters of all television commercials

will be interactive within five years [Forrester Research]  Interactive TV

Things inhibiting us from having Full Digital Television with all its wonderful capabilities.

 Failure to yet develop “the magic box”  Companies must combine Technologies to get to this Level  AOL time Warner  Microsoft – Ultimate TV  Playstation

Regulations of Digital TV  May 2002, all television stations are supposed to be able to transmit digital quality.

 2006, all Analog Signals in the United States are to be cut off entirely.

By this time all Americans must have a Digital Television, or a digital converter box, otherwise America’s favorite past time, TV, will come to an end.

Future Limitations  With the Laissez faire economics this conversion will probably not take place as quickly as government would like.  TV stations are not willing to go to digital because, consumers do not have capabilities to receive digital transmissions.

 Consumers, are not willing to purchase costly digital setups because there is not enough use for them.

Chicken and the Egg.

Companies

 Video conferencing  Content delivery – cheaper, faster, more effective  B2B

The Digital Pocket PC

Price $169.99

• • • take pictures on your handheld fits in your memory card slot for hp jornada 520, 525, 547, 548

Benefits and Limitations

 Able to play movies  Able to play video e mail  Able to take digital pictures  Unable to record digital videos

Academics

 Video on demand  Distance learning  Prerecorded

Prerequisites

 Network decongestion  24/7 availability and reliability  VHS or higher quality

Network Decongestion

 WAN Backbone  Metro (MAN)  Local Loop

DWDM for WANs

 Backbone technology  400 Gb/s vs. 20 Gb/s non-DWDM  Multiple channels  1,400 nm spectrum or band  Switching

MANs

 DWDM  Cisco ONS 15454 & 15327 optical transport platforms  Free Space Photonics  Up to 5km radius  Capable of 2.488 Gbps transfer rate  Extremely secure  Very small and easily installed

Local Loop

   Cable  2 Mbps  Shared xDSL  SDSL (2 Mbps)  ADSL (7Mpps/1.5Mbps)  RADSL (rate adaptive)  VDSL (55 Mbps) Satellite  Limited bandwidth  10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE)     Scheduled for 2002 DWDM compatible Consistent with LANs Reduced packet size – throughput

DSL Deployment Growing

Source: Converge! Network Digest (http://www.convergedigest.com/DSL/numbers/totalDSL.htm)

DSL vs. Cable

Source: Converge! Network Digest (http://www.convergedigest.com/DSL/LastMileDSLNumbers.htm)

Reliability/Availability

•Global reach •99.9% uptime guarantee •Quality of service •Redundancy •Professional staff Source: Digital Island ( http://www.digitalisland.net/services/streaming.shtml

)

Quality of the Streams

 Uncompressed video = 240Mbps  MPEG:  The most popular codec for streaming apps  Free open end standard  Generally “better-quality video than competing formats” (Webopedia, MPEG).

 Developed by the Moving Pictures Experts Group, an ISO subcommittee

MPEG-1

 First to come out - 1992.

 352 x 240 = standard TV, VHS quality  1-3 Mbps – DSL, cable, T1  Prevalent in corporate LANs

MPEG-2

 DVD, set-top boxes, HDTV  up to 100Mbs  720 x 480 full-screen resolution  Bitstream scalability  Studios and cable companies

MPEG-4

 Better compression rates than MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 at the same bit rates  Totally scalable  Increased fault tolerance   Multiple layers Interactive content  Enormous flexibility  5-384kbps for slow LANs and wireless  < 2Mbps for film and TV  Up to 38Mbps for broadcast services

MPEG-4: What’s possible

Source : Overview of the MPEG-4 Standard @ http://www.cselt.it/mpeg/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm

Conclusion: The Future of Streaming Video  Cuts cost, shortens the distribution channel, and brings greater flexibility to rich media.

 Available now but will grow in popularity with improvements in network, TV, and mobile technology  Benefits business, consumers, and academics