Cloud-assisted streaming for low-latency applications

Abstract

Media cloud services offer an unique opportunity for alleviating many of the technical challenges faced by mobile media streaming, especially for applications with stringent latency requirements. In this paper, we propose a novel cloud-assisted architecture for supporting low-latency mobile media streaming applications such as onling gaming and video conferencing. A media proxy at the cloud is envisioned to calculate the optimal media adaptation decisions on behalf of the mobile sender, based on past observations of packet delivery delays of each stream. The proxy-based intelligent frame skipping problem is formulated within the Markov Decisio Process (MDP) framework, which captures both the time-varying nature of video contents as well as bursty fluctuations in wireless channel conditions. The optimal frame skipping policy is calculated using the stochastic dynamic programing (SDP) approach, and is shown to consistently outperform greedy heuristic schemes. Our simulation studies further characterize how system performance is influenced by various key factors, such as application playout latency, network round-trip-time, and wireless link throughput.