548 results about "Quality of experience" patented technology

A Quality of Experience (QoE) framework provides a technique to assess the end user experience in a mobile wireless communication environment, such as 2.5G or 3G networks, or in any other wireless or hardwired communication environment. The framework is usable in conjunction with media streaming applications and enables a combination of network layer, transport layer, codec layer, and application layer measurements in extracting results. The extracted results can be used to monitor and improve, if necessary, the end user experience over severely variable network conditions.

A system and method for monitoring quality of experience includes forwarding a data packet flow carrying content between first and second endpoints. The data packet flow is forwarded at an intermediate point between the first and second endpoints so that the first and second endpoints are communicatively coupled over one or more networks through the intermediate point. The data packet flow is analyzed at the intermediate point and an intermediate point quality of content rating of the content received at the intermediate point is generated. A report detailing one or more attributes about the data packet flow based at least in part on the intermediate point quality of content rating is further generated.

A software program or a set of software tools allows end user quality of experience to be quantified and translated into network conditions required to achieve that end user quality of experience. By focusing on the Quality of Experience (QoE) for the applications that will use the network rather than the traditional bottom up approach, and then looking to design the network based on those end user requirements, the network may be designed and / or operated to achieve a high quality of experience. The program and tools may be used at different phases of the networking cycle, including design, planning, deployment, and operational phases, to allow the QoE requirements to be obtained while optimizing network cost and utilization. A QoE server may be implemented off line and used for network design / planning, or may be included on the network to monitor the network and control operation of the network to achieve the intended QoE.

In a multicast and / or broadcast streaming environment over wired and / or wireless networks, a server provides a plurality of different streams to each group (such as multicast groups) of client devices. Each of the client devices in the respective groups tune in to one of the plurality of streams that is most optimum. Quality of Experience (QoE) metric data or other data pertaining to dynamically changing client device characteristics or channel conditions are collected and evaluated by the server. If results of the evaluated metric data recommend a change to a different stream for a particular one or more client devices, the server switches the client device(s) to a different stream in the same group, or switches the client device(s) to a different stream in a different group if that stream is not available in the current group.

A method of modeling user behavior in an IP network, comprising the steps of allowing a testing user to create a behavior profile specifying one or more user activities from a plurality of user activities performed by a user over the IP network, one or more bandwidth usage levels corresponding to the one or more user activities, and an importance level associated with each user activity; associating one or more applications from a plurality of applications with the one or more user activities; emulating the behavior profile over the IP network by performing the one or more user activities using the one or more applications; and measuring a quality of experience (QoE) score for each user activity from the one or more user activities.

An embodiment of the present invention provides a method for establishing Quality of Experience (QoE) measurements and metrics for different types of actual user activities over IP networks. These activities include, but are not limited to web browsing, sending and receiving email, file downloading and uploading, peer to peer (P2P) networking, VoIP, online gaming, and media streaming. The measurement of the QoE metrics is based on both objective and subjective metrics, including network characteristics, such as packet loss and latency, along with empirical observations of the user activities.

Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products capable of providing insight and understanding into the user experience of web based applications are provided. One method includes collecting and measuring application level key performance indicators, detecting user actions by monitoring network side user traffic in a network, correlating the user actions with the application level key performance indicators in order to evaluate and quantify a quality of experience (Qo E) of the user, and correlating poor Qo E with network side key performance indicators in order to determine an underlying root cause of the poor Qo E.

A system and method for monitoring quality of experience includes forwarding a data packet flow carrying content between first and second endpoints. The data packet flow is forwarded at an intermediate point between the first and second endpoints so that the first and second endpoints are communicatively coupled over one or more networks through the intermediate point. The data packet flow is analyzed at the intermediate point and an intermediate point quality of content rating of the content received at the intermediate point is generated. A report detailing one or more attributes about the data packet flow based at least in part on the intermediate point quality of content rating is further generated.

Techniques are disclosed for representing a user quality of experience (QoE) experienced by users of a streaming media service using a single QoE metric. The single QoE metric may be determined based on a set of empirical characteristics relating to the streaming video service such as startup latency, video quality, and the likelihood of interruptions in streaming playback. The empirical characteristics may be weighted according to how much one factor influences user quality of experience, relative to the others. Representing the QoE as a single metric may allow a streaming media service provider to improve key business measures such as subscriber retention and engagement.

The rapid proliferation of streamed audio-visual services to users via the Internet, especially fee-based services, has increased the importance for content providers in establishing, maintaining, improving and validating the quality of service and experience they provide to the subscribers or users of their services. Accordingly, there is provided a method of determining quality metric data at the user's display in response to a provided digital multimedia stream. The quality metric data being stored for subsequent transmission to a remote server for aggregation and correlation with other quality metric data and defect related data of provided digital multimedia streams to provide service and network providers with quantified data relating to the quality of experience of users of Internet based audio-visual services. As such the quality metric data may be applied to discrete or continuous audio-visual content facilitating quality determinations for streamed content.

A method and an apparatus for reducing a deterioration of a Quality of Experience (QoE) in a multimedia service. The method includes reproducing a first multimedia stream by the multimedia device, receiving a command for reproducing a second multimedia stream during the reproducing of the first multimedia stream, and reproducing the second multimedia stream with reference to information regarding a unit image that is independently decoded from the second multimedia stream. The information regarding the unit image includes information regarding a number of unit images per unit time included in the second multimedia stream.

The invention discloses an inter-cellular base station offloading method based on MEC (Mobile Edge Computing). The method comprises the following steps: sending a reference signal carrying a collaboration cluster building request to a peripheral base station by a hot zone base station; receiving a report of at least one base station by the hot zone base station, selecting N collaboration base stations of which channels are better and remaining computing resources are enough to compute an offloading request within a preset time slot, and building a collaboration cluster; initializing transmission power of the hot zone base station specific to the collaboration base stations in the collaboration cluster, and judging whether the transmission power meets a time delay requirement of the offloading request or not; and determining a joint utility value according to the transmission power and time delay of the hot zone base station, and selecting transmission power in a group of data with a minimum joint utility value as actual transmission power. Through adoption of the inter-cellular base station offloading method based on the MEC disclosed by the invention, the user quality of experience of a hot zone is improved; the power consumption is lowered as much as possible; and meanwhile the utilization ratio of computing resources of a small base station is increased.

Quality feedback in a streaming service wherein at least one media stream (101) is streamed to a client (601) and a quality feedback value is determined (304) according to at least one quality metric is improved by determining (305) a timestamp relating to said quality feedback value according to at least one timestamp metric, wherein for each of said at least one quality metrics, a corresponding timestamp metric is defined, and wherein each of said at least one timestamp metrics is based on a relative media playback time of said at least one media stream (101), and reporting (306) said quality feedback value and said related timestamp to a server (600). Said relative media playback time is preferably derived from RTP (102) timestamps, from a NPT provided by a RTSP (109), from timestamps of a RTCP or from timestamps of a SIP.

A Quality of Experience (QoE) framework provides a technique to assess the end user experience in a mobile wireless communication environment, such as 2.5G or 3G networks, or in any other wireless or hardwired communication environment. The framework is usable in conjunction with media streaming applications and enables a combination of network layer, transport layer, codec layer, and application layer measurements in extracting results. The extracted results can be used to monitor and improve, if necessary, the end user experience over severely variable network conditions.

The embodiment of the invention provides a method for analyzing user perception, which comprises the following steps of: performing performance measurement indicator analysis on the specific aspect of a resource or a resource group for providing a service according to a service type to acquire key performance indicators (KPI) of the service; analyzing the KPI to acquire key quality indicators (KQI) for objectively reflecting the service performance; and analyzing the KQI to obtain a comprehensive satisfaction degree of the service type, and presenting user service quality perception in a quality of experience (QoE) mode of quantitative score. The embodiment of the invention also provides equipment for analyzing the user perception. According to the technical scheme provided by the invention, hierarchical structure analysis is adopted in the architecture of a user perception system, the KPI and the KQI for reflecting objective perception are determined, the service level of the network for the user is finally estimated in a layer-upon-layer mapping mode of the indicators, and the satisfaction degree of the user on the provided service is represented by quantifying the service level.

The present invention is a system or method that facilitates smart decision makings at the client side for adaptive video streaming over a video delivery network by making use of perceptual video quality-of-experience predictions performed during the video preparation stage, at the video hosting or cache server side, or inside the video delivery network, and then transmitted to the client. Compared with prior art approaches of adaptive bitrate video streaming, the present invention can result in one or more of the following benefits: 1) save the overall bandwidth for the delivery of the video content without scarifying the client users' quality-of-experience; 2) create better overall visual quality-of-experience of the client users; 3) create smoother visual quality-of-experience of the client users; and 4) reduce the probability of rebuffering or stalling events at the client user side.

The invention discloses an adaptive streaming adaptation and resource optimization method applied to a cloud-game system. Based on a user QoE model (Quality of Experience) and a service and cost model, user distribution and resource allocation are carried out. The adaptive streaming adaptation and resource optimization method applied to the cloud-game system comprises the following steps: a cloud-game platform operational cycle is divided into multiple time periods; user information and a visual machine resource are updated in a cloud-game platform system in each time period; a user distribution and resource allocation plan is decided based on a current system state, the service cost of a cloud-game service provider is minimized by the plan in the system operational cycle and the user QoE sum is maximized; the user distribution and resource allocation plan is applied to each game user. By establishing the QoE model, namely, the QoE model, a user utility model and a cloud-platform costing model, and based on a Lyapunov optimizing framework, the optimizing method of the user distribution and resource allocation is designed based on a game type and the adaptive streaming adaptation technology.

A device and method for exchanging data frames are disclosed. In one aspect, the device exchanges data between a WAN and one or more LAN segments in an optimized way leading to a better quality of experience for the user. The device comprises an interface exchanging data frames over an access network, at least a first and second subnet interface exchanging data frames and arranged for being coupled to a network, a memory storing classification rules, a classification agent extracting information from an incoming data frame and applying the rules to the extracted information to determine the interface via which the incoming data frame is to be forwarded, and a Quality of Service monitoring agent for retrieving Quality of Service information from the subnet interfaces and dynamically updating the classification rules according to the QoS information.

Techniques for objectively determining perceived video / image quality, the techniques including receiving a degraded bit-stream comprising encoded video / image data, and subsequently parsing the bit-stream to extract one or more video / image coding components. The video coding components may include intra-prediction modes, discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients, motion information, or combinations thereof, and may be used as a basis for objectively predicting a Quality of Experience (QoE) or Motion Opinion Score (MOS) score of the degraded bit-stream.

A system and method for quality of experience estimation are provided. A method for communications device operations includes selecting a portion of a media content stream, processing the portion to produce a processed portion, generating a signature from the processed portion, transmitting the signature, and transmitting the media content stream.

Embodiments of the invention provide monitoring of the Quality-of-Experience (QoE) of a mobile user of a wireless network without introducing any additional packets or requiring user feedback. Furthermore, embodiments of the invention provide QoE information based on certain control messages that may be utilized for reporting, research, or monitoring purposes. As such, a service provider could utilize the QoE information provided by embodiments of the invention to, among other possibilities, manage, upgrade, or enhance their wireless network to ensure a quality network experience for end users.

The invention discloses a method for evaluating QoE (Quality of Experience) of mobile streaming media service perception experience by simulating user behaviors. The method comprises the following steps of: firstly, setting a mobile streaming media service QoE evaluation index system in which the user perception experience of mobile streaming media services are divided into parameters in three aspects of service access, service continuance and service completion; secondly, simulating the whole process of a user using the mobile streaming media services by a test terminal, and acquiring, respectively calculating key performance indexes (KPI) of the mobile streaming media services, calculating key quality indexes (KQI) of corresponding services of the mobile streaming media services, and performing comprehensive operation on the KQIs by means of a psychological model to obtain key experience indexes (KEI) of the corresponding services; and finally, comprehensively analyzing the KEI indexes to obtain a streaming media service QoE value which is in a five-grade marking system and equivalent to international standard MOS (Mean Opinion Score). The method disclosed by the invention is objective and practicable in evaluation parameter standard, simple in operation step, low in calculation complexity and easy to integrate, and is capable of obtaining relatively objective, just user experience perception quality by simulating the mobile streaming media service user.

A method for reporting a streaming quality is shown, wherein at least one continuous media stream is streamed to a client (601), and wherein said streaming is controlled by a protocol (109) that is operated between said client (601) and a server (600), the method including selecting at least one quality metric and a quality metrics class from a pre-defined set of at least two quality metrics classes, and reporting to said server (600) the quality of said streaming based on said at least one selected quality metric and said selected quality metrics class. The protocol (109) is preferably a Real-time Streaming Protocol in combination with a Session Description Protocol in the context of the 3GPP Packet-Switched Streaming Service. Also shown is a computer program, a computer program product, a system, a client, a server and a protocol.

LWA (LTE-WLAN Aggregation) is a tight integration at radio level which allows for real-time channel and load aware radio resource management across WLAN and LTE to provide significant capacity and quality of experience (QoE) improvements. When enabling LWA, packets are routed to a base station (eNB) for performing PDCP functionalities as an LTE PDU. Afterwards, the eNB can schedule the PDU either translated over LTE link or WLAN link. The eNB can acquire packet delay information regarding the WLAN link or obtain PDCP layer performance feedback from the UE. As a result, the eNB can adjust PDCP parameter setting and LWA scheduling accordingly.

A method of notifying estimated QoEs (Quality of Experiences) for applications between a mobile terminal and a plurality of application servers that provide services of the applications, may measure first QoEs for the applications between the apparatus and the mobile terminal, measure second QoEs for the applications between the apparatus and the application server, estimate the estimated QoEs for the applications, based on the first and second QoEs for the applications, and notify the estimated QoEs to the mobile terminal.

The invention discloses a dynamic network selection method for optimizing the quality of experience (QoE) of a user in a heterogeneous wireless network. According to the method, an access network is periodically and dynamically updated according to the type of transmitted service and a network in which the current user accesses. The method comprises the following steps of: constructing user QoE demand functions of three service types and initializing variables in Q learning; performing network selection decision and execution switching by a Q learning method; and updating the variables in the Q learning method. According to the method, from the visual angle of the user, different service characteristics are distinguished, and the QoE of the user is optimized. According to the dynamic network selection method disclosed by the invention, heterogeneous wireless network resources can be efficiently used; based on reinforced learning, transcendental network state information is not needed; and the dynamic network selection method is higher in flexibility and can be suitable for various dynamic network environments.

The invention relates to a QoE (quality of experience) support resource distribution method for LTE (long term evolution) network video service. The method is characterized by comprising the following steps: (1) receiving feedback information of various video users from user equipment (UE) by a base station eNodeB; (2) monitoring the state of a cache queue of radio link control (RLC) by the base station eNodeB and calculating the rate requirement R of real-time video service; (3) calculating QoE benefit function value taking the satisfaction degree Q(R) obtained when the rate requirement R of the video users is met as a reference by a dispatcher in the base station eNodeB; (4) combining the dispatcher with a video QoE benefit function and the state grade of a terminal buffer area to construct distribution priorities of users on N resource blocks at t time, wherein u and n respectively represent the users and indexes of the resource blocks (RBs); and (5) performing priority sequencing on the users according to the resource distribution priorities constructed in the step (4) and polling to distribute time frequency resource blocks to the users. According to the method disclosed by the invention, the quality of service experience of the users can be ensured from the two aspects of video image quality and smoothness of playing process.

The present disclosure relates to a system and method for monitoring audio-video (AV) streams transported over a network. The system may include at least one AV probe configured for installation at a network node. The at least one AV probe may be configured to receive an incoming AV stream at a native frame rate and to capture at least one thumbnail of the incoming AV stream at a sampling rate which is less than the native frame rate to form a thumbnail stream. The at least one AV probe may be further configured to timestamp and transmit the thumbnail stream, and to forward the incoming AV stream substantially in real-time. The system may further include at least one monitoring engine operatively connected with the at least one AV probe, the at least one monitoring engine configured to receive the thumbnail stream, capture AV data from the thumbnail stream, and transform the AV data into a visual representation of AV stream quality of experience (QoE).

A system and method for supporting mobile coalitions for entertainment comprises devices including a master device, a server having a multimedia service executable by the master device and modules operable to recommend formation of a coalition based on the service, invite the devices to participate in the coalition, set up the coalition by determining the devices to participate, launching on each device a link to the coalition, performing emulation of the coalition by streaming a portion of the service to each device until experience is satisfactory, and continuing by transmitting the service to the devices, capture interactions on the devices by users, the interactions comprising at least gestures, taps correlating to messages of quality of experience, adapt the coalition by managing user inputs conveying quality of experience, maintaining synchronization of the devices, and maintaining the service when one or more of the devices cease to participate, and terminate the coalition.

A system and method for differentiated services in adaptive streaming are provided. A method for server operations includes: determining an optimization of aggregated quality of experience scores for a set of candidate subscribers served by a server; adjusting a service rate of at least one subscriber based on the determined optimization of aggregated quality of experience scores; and streaming information to the at least one subscriber based on the adjusted service rate. The optimization is based on one or more of: a subscriber level for one or more of the plurality of subscribers; a current service rate; and available service rates.