TETE Multimedia Networking

2025 01 23

Dr. Mugerwa Dickson

Kyambogo University
Department of Electrical and Electronics engineering
Faculty of Engineering

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 Course logistics
Objectives
By the end of this course, the student should be able to:
❖ Acquire knowledge on Signal/image processing basics, networking basics
❖ Show an understanding on motion estimation in video, video coding standards, images and video compr
ession.
❖ Multimedia Networking Protocols (RTSP, RTP, RTCP, SIP), Multimedia over IP networks: issues and solutions; M
ultimedia over wireless: issues and solutions; Case studies: Skype, YouTube, Service chains and some business a
nd legal considerations

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 Course Logistics
❖ Requirements Contribution
◆Assignments 5%
◆Tests 10%
◆Practical Work 25 %
◆Final Examination 60%
◆Total 100%

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Define multimedia?

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 Introduction
Definition: Multimedia networking refers to the delivery of multimedia content (audio, video, images, text)
over computer networks.
❖ Key Concepts:
• Real-time Communication: Delivering audio and video with minimal delay (e.g., video conferencing).
• Streaming: Continuous transmission of multimedia data (e.g., YouTube, Spotify).
• QoS (Quality of Service): Ensuring the network provides the necessary bandwidth, latency, and reliability.
❖ Components:
1. Encoders/Codecs: Convert multimedia content into digital formats.
2. Protocols: Govern data transmission (e.g., RTP, RTSP, HTTP).
3. Network Infrastructure: Routers, servers, and storage.
4. End-User Devices: Computers, smartphones, and smart TVs.

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 Multimedia Networking Applications

❖ Multimedia network application is as any network application that employs audio or video
❖ Properties of Video
◆ high bit rate
◆It can be compressed,
▪ thereby trading off video quality with bit rate.

◆.

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 Teaser

❖What do you understand by the term Video?

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 Definintion

❖A video is a sequence of images, typically being displayed at a constant rate,

for example, at 24 or 30 images per second.
❖ An uncompressed, digitally encoded image consists of an array of pixels, with each pixel encoded into a number
of bits to represent luminance and color.

❖Types of redundancy in video

◆Spatial redundancy
Is the redundancy within a given image, -> the white spaces in the image
◆Temporal redundancy
❖ Reflects repetition from image to subsequent image-> example an image and the subsequent image are exactly the
same, there is no reason to re-encode the subsequent image;
❖ We can also use compression to create multiple versions of the same video each at a different quality Level
(three versions of the same video, at rates of(300 kbps, 1 Mbps, and 3 Mbps.) so the user decides which one to
watch as a function of their current available bandwidth.

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 Properties of Audio
❖ Digital audio (including digitized speech and music) has significantly lower bandwidth requirements than video
(Pulse Code Modulation)
❖Digital Audio data has much less bandwidth requirements than that of Video.
Analog audio signal is sampled at a fixed rate (e.g. 8000 samples/sec, Human hearing and voice range is about 20
Hz to 20 kHz, most sensitive at 2 to 4 KHz.).
The value of each sample is a real value.
❖ Each sample value is then rounded to one of the finite number of values. This operation is called quantization.
❖ The finite values are called quantization values, and are always in power of 2, e.g. 256 quantization

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 Properties of Audio Data
❖Audio CD also uses PCM: sampling rate of 44100 samples per second and 16 bi
ts per sample on a linear scale 705.6 Kbps (mono) and 1.411 Mbps (stereo).
❖PCM-encoded speech and music is rarely used in Internet.
The reason is to have reduced bit rate.

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 Audio compression overview
(MP3 Compression)
❖Also Known as Perceptual Coding
❖Remove frequencies that human ear cannot hear (i.e. very high and low frequencies are
removed).
❖Also if both a louder and softer sounds are played at same time, the filtering ignores the
softer ones
❖Our ears and minds cannot separate events that are close in time.
❖As a sound becomes quiter and quitter , humans are able only to make out less and less
detail.
❖The encoder thus not saves every single detail of quite sounds (i.e. minimum audition thresh
old)
❖Reduction by a factor of 10 (33MB songs on CD can be compressed to about 3MB)
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 Types of Multimedia Network Applications
❖ we classify multimedia applications into three broad categories
(i) streaming stored audio/video,
(ii) conversational voice/video-over-IP, and
(iii) streaming live audio/video.

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
Features
Focus here is on streaming stored video, which typically combines video and audio components
❖Media is pre-recorded.
❖Online movie watching sites (Netflix, Hulu, Lovefilm, Kankan, etc.) Catch up TV (BBC iPlayer,
etc.)
❖Online video sharing sites (YouTube, Dailymotion, YouKu, etc.)
❖Streaming stored video contains both video and audio components
❖Streaming stored audio alone has much lower bit rates, hence less challenging
❖Streaming stored video sometimes also referred to as video on-demand (VoD)

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
stored video has three key distinguishing features.
❖Streaming
◆Video plays out after a few seconds of the beginning of the download
◆Simultaneous playout of earlier part and download of later part
◆This is called streaming (as opposed to download-and-play)
❖Interactivity
❖ Because the media is prerecorded, the user may;
◆Pause, reposition forward, reposition backward, fast-forward through the video content.
◆Response within few seconds
❖Continuous playout
◆When playout begins, it proceeds according to the original time of recording.
◆When not receiving frames in time causes stalls on the client side and degrades user experience
❖ By using buffering and prefetching, it is possible to provide continuous playout even when the throughput
fluctuates,

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
(Storage/ sharing)
❖ Multimedia content stored on servers, possibly in different encodings.
❖ Content is often placed on a Content Distribution Network (CDN) , rather than a single data center, for faster access.
❖ With P2P streaming applications, peers hold different chunks of content and they collectively form the “server”.
❖ The chunks arrive from different peers speeding up sharing.

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
(Streaming: no jitters)

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video

❖Client-side buffering
❖ Common technique employed in all forms of streaming video systems to absorb network delay variability and enable
continuous playout
❖ Higher the delay variability, longer the playout delay needed

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
❖ (A different view of Client-Side Buffering)

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
❖ (A different view of Client-Side Buffering)

• Initial fill of buffer until playout begins

• Playout begins at tp,
• Buffer fill level varies over time as fill rate x(t) varies and playout rate r is constant
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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video

Key parameters: average fill rate (xavg), playout rate (r)

• xavg < r: buffer eventually empties (causing freezing of video playout until buffer again fills)
• xavg > r: buffer will not empty, provided initial playout delay is large enough to absorb variability in
x(t)
• initial playout delay tradeoff: buffer starvation less likely with larger delay, but larger delay until
user begins watching

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
❖ Streaming video systems can be classified into three categories
◆UDP streaming
◆HTTP streaming
◆Adaptive HTTP streaming
❖Majority of current systems use (adaptive) HTTP streaming
❖Optimization strategies
❖Client buffering and prefetching
◆ A common characteristic of the three categories to mitigate the effect of varying end-to-end delay and bandwidth.
❖Adapting video quality to available bandwidth
❖CDN based distribution

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 Streaming Stored Audio and Video
❖ With UDP streaming,
❖ a server transmits video at a rate that matches the client’s video consumption rate by clocking out the video
chunks over UDP at a steady rate.
◆ Server transmit rate matches with client video consumption rate.

❖ Example: If client video consumption rate is 2Mbps, and each packet contains 8000 bits, then server should transmit
each UDP packet at 8000b/2Mbps=4msec.
❖ A small buffer at client side is used to hold (2-5sec) video to remove network jitter

❖ Before passing the video chunks to UDP, the server will encapsulate the video chunks within transport
packets specially designed for transporting audio and video, using the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP)

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 ❖ UDP streaming suffers from three significant drawbacks.

❖ Limitations:
◆Due to unpredictable and varying amount of available bandwidth, constant-rate streaming may fail to
provide continuous playout.
◆Freezing and skipped frames
◆Requirement for media control server (e.g., RTSP server) to support interactivity and track client state,
increases cost and Complexity with scalability
◆Many firewalls are configured to block UDP traffic, preventing the users behind these firewalls from
receiving UDP video.

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 Streaming using HTTP

❑ Multimedia file retrieved via HTTP GET

❑ Send at maximum possible rate under TCP
❑ Fill rate fluctuates due to TCP congestion control, retransmissions (in-order delivery)
❑ Larger playout delay to smooth TCP delivery rate
❑ HTTP/TCP passes more easily through firewalls

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 ❖ In HTTP streaming, the video is simply stored in an HTTP server as an ordinary file with a specific URL.
❖ When a user wants to see the video, the client establishes a TCP connection with the server and issues an HTTP
GET request for that URL
❖ The server then sends the video file, within an HTTP response message, as quickly as possible, that is, as quickly
as TCP congestion control and flow control will allow.
❖ On the client side, the bytes are collected in a client application buffer. Once the number of bytes in this buffer exc
eeds a predetermined threshold, the client application begins playback
❖ It periodically grabs video frames from the client application buffer, decompresses the frames, and displays them
on the user’s screen.
❖ The use of HTTP over TCP also allows the video to traverse firewalls and NATs more easily (which are often
configured to block most UDP traffic but to allow most HTTP traffic)
❖ Most video streaming applications today—including YouTube and Netflix—use HTTP streaming (over TCP) as its
underlying streaming protocol.

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