Streaming Video
by
Alan Barker
Antony Voznesensky
Chris Harris
What is Streaming?
Real-time transmission of video + audio
signals over the Internet
 CNN sample stream

Benefits of Streaming
Companies
 Consumers
 Academics

Consumers
HDTV
 Digital Cinema
 Video on demand

The American Past Time:
Television
Digital TV
“As the 500 channel universe becomes a reality,
broadcasters are looking for ways to ensure viewer retention and
enable new viewer acquisition. Digital television allows them to
accomplish this by not only delivering better video and audio
quality to their viewers, but by also allowing them to
differentiate their service offerings through combining
interactive television applications with traditional television
programming content.”
What is Digital TV?
The digital reception of a program on a
television monitor.
Advantages of Digital TV
Greater Picture Quality from digital signal HDTV
 Watch any program at any time, without
interruptions. TIVO
 Interactive TV--Internet Capabilities, ECommerce opportunities from your TV
Ultimate TV.

Interactive TV

2.2 million households
are projected to have the
interactive TV service
by the end of the year
[Forrester Research]
Nearly one-quarter of
all U.S. households will
be using Interactive
Television by 2004
[Forrester Research]

Interactive television
advertising revenues
are expected to reach
$11 billion in the U.S. by
2004 [Forrester
Research]

Interactive television
advertising revenues
are expected to reach
$11 billion in the U.S. by
2004 [Forrester
Research]

Three-quarters of all
television commercials
will be interactive within
five years [Forrester
Research]

Interactive TV
Things inhibiting us from having
Full Digital Television with all its
wonderful capabilities.
Failure to yet develop “the magic box”
 Companies must combine Technologies to
get to this Level
 AOL time Warner
 Microsoft – Ultimate TV
 Playstation

Regulations of Digital TV
 May 2002, all television stations are supposed to be able to
transmit digital quality.
2006, all Analog Signals in the United States are to be cut
off entirely.
By this time all Americans must have a Digital
Television, or a digital converter box, otherwise
America’s favorite past time, TV, will come to an end.
Future Limitations
With the Laissez faire economics this conversion will
probably not take place as quickly as government would
like.
TV stations are not willing to go to digital because,
consumers do not have capabilities to receive digital
transmissions.
Consumers, are not willing to purchase costly digital
setups because there is not enough use for them.
Chicken and the Egg.
Companies
Video conferencing
 Content delivery – cheaper, faster, more
effective
 B2B

The Digital Pocket PC
Price
•
•
•
$169.99
take pictures on your
handheld
fits in your memory
card slot
for hp jornada 520,
525, 547, 548
Benefits and Limitations



Able to play movies
Able to play video email
Able to take digital
pictures

Unable to record
digital videos
Academics
Video on demand
 Distance learning
 Prerecorded

Prerequisites
Network decongestion
 24/7 availability and reliability
 VHS or higher quality

Network Decongestion
WAN
Backbone
 Metro
(MAN)
 Local Loop

DWDM for WANs
Backbone technology
 400 Gb/s vs. 20 Gb/s non-DWDM
 Multiple channels
 1,400 nm spectrum or band
 Switching

MANs


DWDM
 Cisco ONS 15454 & 15327 optical transport
platforms
Free Space Photonics
 Up to 5km radius
 Capable of 2.488 Gbps transfer rate
 Extremely secure
 Very small and easily installed
Local Loop



Cable
 10 Gigabit Ethernet
 2 Mbps
(10GbE)
 Shared
 Scheduled for 2002
xDSL
 DWDM compatible
 SDSL (2 Mbps)
 ADSL (7Mpps/1.5Mbps)
 Consistent with
 RADSL (rate adaptive)
LANs
 VDSL (55 Mbps)
 Reduced packet
Satellite
size – throughput
 Limited bandwidth
DSL Deployment Growing
Source: Converge! Network Digest
(http://www.convergedigest.com/DSL/numbers/totalDSL.htm)
DSL vs. Cable
Source: Converge! Network Digest
(http://www.convergedigest.com/DSL/LastMileDSLNumbers.htm)
Reliability/Availability
•Global reach
•99.9% uptime
guarantee
•Quality of service
•Redundancy
•Professional staff
Source: Digital Island
(http://www.digitalisland.net/services/streaming.shtml)
Quality of the Streams


Uncompressed video = 240Mbps
MPEG:
 The most popular codec for streaming apps
 Free open end standard
 Generally “better-quality video than competing
formats” (Webopedia, MPEG).
 Developed by the Moving Pictures Experts
Group, an ISO subcommittee
MPEG-1
First to come out - 1992.
 352 x 240 = standard TV, VHS quality
 1-3 Mbps – DSL, cable, T1
 Prevalent in corporate LANs

MPEG-2
DVD, set-top boxes, HDTV
 up to 100Mbs
 720 x 480 full-screen resolution
 Bitstream scalability
 Studios and cable companies

MPEG-4






Better compression rates
than MPEG-1 or MPEG-2
at the same bit rates
Totally scalable
Increased fault tolerance
Multiple layers
Interactive content
Enormous flexibility



5-384kbps for slow
LANs and wireless
< 2Mbps for film and
TV
Up to 38Mbps for
broadcast services
MPEG-4: What’s possible
Source: Overview of the MPEG-4 Standard @
http://www.cselt.it/mpeg/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm
Conclusion: The Future
of Streaming Video
Cuts cost, shortens the distribution channel,
and brings greater flexibility to rich media.
 Available now but will grow in popularity
with improvements in network, TV, and
mobile technology
 Benefits business, consumers, and
academics
