QoE assessment for SVC streaming in ENVISION

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the user-perceived quality of scalable video streaming with a smoothing mechanism under varying network conditions, demonstrating improved perceived quality through subjective testing.

Contribution

It introduces a user perception assessment of a playout smoothing mechanism for SVC streaming, validating its effectiveness in enhancing perceived video quality.

Findings

Higher Mean Opinion Scores for smoothed videos across network conditions

Smoothing mechanism effectively reduces quality fluctuations

User perception improves with the proposed smoothing method

Abstract

Scalable video coding has drawn great interest in content delivery in many multimedia services thanks to its capability to handle terminal heterogeneity and network conditions variation. In our previous work, and under the umbrella of ENVISION, we have proposed a playout smoothing mechanism to ensure the uniform delivery of the layered stream, by reducing the quality changes that the stream undergoes when adapting to changing network conditions. In this paper we study the resulting video quality, from the final user perception under different network conditions of loss and delays. For that we have adopted the Double Stimulus Impairment Scale (DSIS) method. The results show that the Mean Opinion Score for the smoothed video clips was higher under different network configuration. This confirms the effectiveness of the proposed smoothing mechanism.