Adaptive Streaming Transition Phase Scheduling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Adaptive streaming technologies face challenges in efficiently combining open GOP structures with adaptive streaming protocols, particularly due to issues with missing reference pictures during random access and bit rate peaks, which affect coding efficiency and client buffer management.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a device that schedules a transition phase before switching from a first video stream to a second video stream, allowing the second stream to use an open GOP structure and providing time to compensate for missing reference pictures. Additionally, the use of layered video streams with inter-layer prediction and no residual coding helps in making reference pictures available for random access dependent pictures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If open GOP structure is used for encoding video streams, then coding efficiency is improved, but reference pictures may be lost during random access
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary decoding of the lower resolution stream to generate reference pictures before the random access point in the higher resolution stream. This advance preparation ensures that when random access occurs, the necessary reference pictures are already available in the decoded picture buffer, preventing picture loss while maintaining open GOP structure benefits
Solution Approach 2:
A lower resolution video stream serves as an intermediary to provide reference pictures for the higher resolution stream. The lower resolution stream is decoded and its pictures are used as substitute references for random access dependent pictures in the higher resolution stream, bridging the gap caused by open GOP structure
2Reliability
If closed GOP structure is used for encoding video streams, then reference picture availability is maintained, but coding efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The video streaming system is segmented into multiple resolutions (lower and higher resolution streams). Each stream can use different GOP structures appropriately - the lower resolution stream uses closed GOP for reliable reference pictures, while the higher resolution stream uses open GOP for better compression, with the lower stream serving as reference source
3Adaptability or versatility
If adaptive streaming switching between different video versions is implemented, then streaming adaptability is improved, but random access dependent pictures may be lost during switching
Solution Approach 1:
The lower resolution stream acts as an intermediary reference source during adaptive streaming switches. When switching between video versions or resolutions, the decoded pictures from the lower resolution stream provide the necessary reference frames for random access dependent pictures in the target stream, ensuring picture completeness during transitions
Solution Approach 2:
The system decodes the lower resolution stream in advance to prepare reference pictures before switching occurs. This preliminary decoding ensures that when adaptive streaming requires a switch to a different version or resolution, the reference pictures are already available, preventing loss of random access dependent pictures
4Productivity
If larger input buffer is used at client, then bit rate peak compensation is improved, but client buffer size increases
Solution Approach 1:
The lower resolution video stream serves as an intermediary resource that provides reference pictures for the higher resolution stream. This allows the system to handle bit rate variations more efficiently by leveraging the already-decoded lower resolution pictures, reducing the need for large buffers to compensate for bit rate peaks
Data Source
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AI summary
Adaptive streaming is rendered more efficiently combinable with the usage of an open GOP structure by configuring a device for retrieving a video such that the same schedules a transition phase before switching from a first video stream to the second video stream, and/or by configuring a device for outputting a video in accordance with the adaptive streaming protocol such that the same supports switching outputting the video in form of a layered video stream or an increased spatial resolution stream, the layered video stream having a second layer which has encoded thereon the video at the increased spatial resolution using inter-layer prediction without residual coding. A media content such as a video to be represented in a dependent (second) representation which is composed a first set of temporal segments which has encoded thereinto the media content dependent on first portions of a first (reference) representation of the media content temporally corresponding to the first set of temporal segments, and a second set of temporal segments the second representation which has encoded thereinto the media content independent from second portions of the first representation temporally corresponding to the second set of temporal segments so that a successful reconstruction. A media scene composed of several channels is made more efficiently streamable spending, for each channel, a set of representations of the respective channel which differ in a temporal distribution of random access points.