Multidimensional transcoding for adaptive video streaming

Abstract

The prominence of digital video on the Internet is rising constantly. Faster Internet connections and more powerful devices make video streaming over the Internet more and more popular. With mobile devices, however, the usability of digital videos that are streamed over a wireless network connection is still limited by the available resources. Mobile devices are often not capable of receiving and decoding high quality video streams from the Internet because of their limited resources as well as due to the limitations of a wireless network connection. The presentation, for instance, of a video stream with 1920x1080 pixels on a screen with a resolution of only 320x240 pixels is not possible without a high amount of processing power at the receiving device. The transmission of such a high quality video stream over a wireless link may additionally consume a large part of the available network capacity, which then may interfere active network connections of other devices. A limited network capacity may additionally prevent the device from decoding and displaying the video stream at all. One solution of these problems is to perform an adaptation of the video stream to the requirements of mobile devices during the transmission of the stream to the client.