Intel, Cisco and Verizon are investing $3.3 million in R&D at five universities in an effort to improve video delivery over wireless networks.
“The first goal of the Video Aware Wireless Networks (VAWN) program? Find a good way to measure mobile video quality,” reports ReadWriteWeb.
Evaluating subjective video quality in quantitative terms is a challenge, one that involves perceptual issues and technical concerns.
“Because viewers perceive quality differently depending on what they’re watching — sports versus talking heads, for example — quality isn’t about throughput but experience, explained Jeff Foerster, principal engineer and wireless researcher at Intel Labs. That’s why VAWN researchers partnered with psychology departments to better understand how the brain comprehends different kinds of video on various devices,” notes the article.
Video stream algorithms, data compression, caching, network management and data storage are some of the considerations in designing systems that will ideally meet the needs of the most people.
Cooperation between packets of data in a network is also a consideration. “Not all packets need to be treated the same,” says Foerster. “Some packets are more important than others to maximizing perceived video quality.”
To further complicate matters, the video measurements will vary by device. Also, different video formats have different requirements.
Increasing efficiency and quality is a pressing matter, suggests the post: “In 5 years an estimated 90 percent of Net traffic will be video, and 66 percent of mobile traffic will be video. Video traffic is expected to grow 66 times based on the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), but carriers simply can’t afford to spend 66 times the cost to boost network capacity.”
The project is in year two of its three-year plan and includes research conducted by the University of Texas at Austin, Cornell, University of California San Diego, University of Southern California and Moscow State University.
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