Hands On Adaptive Bitrate Streaming

Delivery of television over the Web has become a key technology we all now recognise. From YouTube to the BBC iPlayer most people have used a web site offering such services. However, most have also experienced difficulties and frustrations with early offerings of the technology. Receivers may be connected over good Internet services but shared with many others. They may be on wired connections or connected by WiFi. The quality of the connection cannot be guaranteed by the provider of the service and the result of poor Internet connection has been choppy video and long pauses in playback.

The solution to this problem is Adaptive Bitrate Streaming. The server must be able to deliver the content at multiple rates and to detect which rate to select as the service conditions change from moment to moment. To be successful the WebTV service must have the right content matched with carful encoding, simple player technology and good delivery network design. It must further be configured to adapt its encoding and delivery rates so that service can be provided to a wide range of devices connected over differing network conditions.

There are currently three different methods used in the industry to achieve this. The first is Microsoft Smooth Streaming using Silverlight and Expression 4 encoding. This was the first technology in the industry and can be used for delivery to most platforms. The most popular encoding for Web delivery of video is Adobe flash which is the technology currently used on YouTube and the BBC iPlayer. This has evolved to provide Adaptive services using Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS). However Apple iPhone and iPAD devices have had difficulty receiving Flash services. Apple have adapted progressive downloads to deliver HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).

In this course students will configure Adaptive Bitrate Streaming hands-on delivering services using Smooth Streaming, HDS and HLS. They will analyse the performance of the services using protocol analysers over differing network conditions. Services from both live camera feeds and recoded TV services will be studied to allow students to compare services and to select the best option. Example delivery over Wired LAN and WiFi will be used in the classroom to allow the best and worst conditions to be compared. Using an Internet simulator, students will test the performance of the different services under changing network conditions.

The course will describe demonstrate the key engineering problems in building Adaptive Bitrate WebTV services, compare player technologies and allow students to select the best of the current solutions available. It will analyze the protocols used for delivery providing attendees the skills to use key analysis software used to troubleshoot application platforms and the network technologies used within WebTV systems.

Hands-on exercises will use PCs or laptops running Windows-7 Professional or Ultimate edition. The classroom network should be isolated from any corporate network and good Internet access must be available to undertake class exercises.