Upgrading Performance of Your Streaming Services Using Server Hints

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Publisher: SMPTE — White Plains, NY, USA
Doc Type: Conference Paper
Content Type: Original Research
Volume: 2022, No. 10, pp. 1–8
Abstract: A smooth playback behavior is critical for any OTT service. Viewers naturally like not to experience rebuffering events, but less frequent and shorter ones are preferred when they cannot be avoided. However, ensuring smoother playback becomes more challenging as more demanding services such as low-latency live and 4K streaming become more widely available. — It has been shown many times that adaptive streaming clients compete with each other for the available bandwidth and server capacity. The server's priority in responding to the individual requests sent by these clients should be based on clients' time-varying playback buffer conditions. Previously, we presented that the server could wisely allocate its output capacity among the incoming requests and largely mitigate the rebufferings suffered by the clients, provided that the clients informed the server about their buffer statuses using the Common Media Client Data (CMCD) standard. In a more recent study, we developed an alternative solution to the same problem using the Common Media Server Data (CMSD) standard, which is still a work-in-progress in the CTA. In this solution, the server's response to a request that indicated a sufficient buffer level was delayed until the requests that indicated an insufficient buffer level were handled. The server attached a new CMSD parameter to the eventual response disclosing how long the delay was. This parameter avoided misinterpretation and the subsequent incorrect decision by the client's rate-adaptation logic. Our experiments (for which we offer the source code) showed that the proposed CMSD parameter eliminated unnecessary rate-shifting to lower bitrates while reducing the rebuffering rate as well as the rebuffering duration. — This paper summarizes these findings and illustrates other envisioned use cases for the CMSD standard.
Publication Date: 2022-10-24
DOI: 10.5594/M001960
ISBN: Print: 978-1-61482-963-8
Link: https://doi.org/10.5594/M001960
Author(s): Ali C. BegenPhD, Comcast (US) and Ozyegin University (Turkey)
Yasser SyedPhD, Comcast (US)
Alex GiladiComcast (US)
Keyword(s): Adaptive Bitrate Streaming, OTT, Content Delivery Network, DASH, HLS, Common Media Server Data (CMSD), Common Media Client Data (CMCD), SAND
Copyright: © 2022 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Inc.

Bibliographic Reference(s)

CTA.5004.2020 — Consumer Technology Association (CTA), Web Application Video Ecosystem—Common Media Client Data—CTA 5004, Sep. 2020. EXTERNAL
ISO.23009-5.2017 — International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 23009-5:2017, “Information Technology—Dynamic Adaptive Streaming Over HTTP (DASH)—Part 5: Server and Network Assisted DASH (SAND).” Accessed: Sept. 10, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.iso.org/standard/69079.html EXTERNAL
S. Pham, M. Avelino, D. Silhavy, T.-S. An, and S. Arbanowski. Standards-based streaming analytics and its visualization. In ACM MMSys, 2021. EXTERNAL
DASH-IF. DASH Reference Client. [Online] Available: https://reference.dashif.org/dash.js/. Accessed on Sept. 10, 2022. EXTERNAL
cta-wave/common-media-server data. [Online] Available: https://github.com/cta-wave/common-media-server-data. Accessed on Sept. 10, 2022. EXTERNAL
Abdelhak Bentaleb, Bayan Taani, Ali C. Begen, Christian Timmerer and Roger Zimmermann. A survey on bitrate adaptation schemes for streaming media over HTTP. IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 21/1, pp. 562-585, Firstquarter 2019 (DOI: 10.1109/COMST.2018.2862938). EXTERNAL
A. C. Begen. Manus manum lavat: media clients and servers cooperating with common media client/server data. In ACM Applied Networking Research Wksp. (ANRW), 2021 (DOI: 10.1145/3472305.3472886). EXTERNAL
A. C. Begen, A. Bentaleb, D. Silhavy, S. Pham, R. Zimmermann, and W. Law. Road to salvation: streaming clients and content delivery networks working together. IEEE Communications Magazine, 59(11):123–128, 2021 (DOI: 10.1109/MCOM.121.2100137). EXTERNAL
NUS-OzU. CMCD-DASH. [Online] Available: https://github.com/NUStreaming/CMCD-DASH. Accessed on Sept. 10, 2022. EXTERNAL
NUS-OzU. CMSD-DASH. [Online] Available: https://github.com/NUStreaming/CMSD-DASH. Accessed on Sept. 10, 2022. EXTERNAL
S. Akhshabi, L. Anantakrishnan, A. C. Begen, and C. Dovrolis. What happens when HTTP adaptive streaming players compete for bandwidth? In ACM NOSSDAV, 2012 (DOI: 10.1145/2229087.2229092). EXTERNAL
May Lim, Mehmet N. Akcay, Abdelhak Bentaleb, Ali C. Begen and Roger Zimmermann. The benefits of server hinting when DASHing or HLSing. In ACM MHV, 2022 (DOI: 10.1145/3510450.3517317). EXTERNAL
A. Bentaleb, M. Lim, M. N. Akcay, A. C. Begen, and R. Zimmermann. Common media client data (CMCD): Initial findings. In ACM NOSSDAV, 2021 (DOI: 10.1145/3458306.3461444). EXTERNAL
S. Akhshabi, L. Anantakrishnan, C. Dovrolis, and A. C. Begen. Server-based traffic shaping for stabilizing oscillating adaptive streaming players. In ACM NOSSDAV, 2013 (DOI: 10.1145/2460782.2460786). EXTERNAL
D. H. Lee, C. Dovrolis, and A. C. Begen. Caching in HTTP adaptive streaming: friend or foe? In ACM NOSSDAV, 2014 (DOI: 10.1145/2597176.2578270). EXTERNAL

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Ali C. Begen, Yasser Syed, and Alex Giladi; Upgrading Performance of Your Streaming Services Using Server Hints, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2022); SMPTE, 2022, ISBN: 978-1-61482-963-8. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/M001960

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Ali C. Begen, Yasser Syed, and Alex Giladi; Upgrading Performance of Your Streaming Services Using Server Hints, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2022); SMPTE, 2022, ISBN: 978-1-61482-963-8. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/M001960

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<span class="citation">Ali C. Begen, Yasser Syed, and Alex Giladi; <cite>Upgrading Performance of Your Streaming Services Using Server Hints</cite>, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2022); SMPTE, 2022, ISBN: 978-1-61482-963-8. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/M001960" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/M001960</a></span>

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Ali C. Begen, Yasser Syed, and Alex Giladi; <cite id="bib-10-5594-m001960">Upgrading Performance of Your Streaming Services Using Server Hints</cite>, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2022); SMPTE, 2022, ISBN: 978-1-61482-963-8
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