A Dynamic Adaptive HTTP Streaming Video Service for Google Android

Abstract: Adaptive streaming approaches over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), such as Apple's HTTP Live streaming (HLS) and Microsoft's Live Smooth Streaming, have recently become very popular. This master's thesis project developed and evaluated several media rate adaptation algorithms optimized for mobile networks with a client running on Google's Android operating system. The deployed service supports HLS and the emerging ISO/IEC MPEG standard called Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH). Live media was the focus of the evaluation, since this content can not be cached in advance at the user's device, hence the quality of the user's experience will be affected by the currently available bandwidth which the user can utilize. Experiments were performed for multiples scenarios illustrating different network capabilities, especially various amounts of bandwidth available to the user. This project has produced an implementation of HTTP-based adaptive streaming. This implementation follows the MPEG standard and enables robust and smooth playback of live video content via Google's Android devices. Results of the experiments have shown that the proposed adaptation mechanisms efficiently utilize the available bandwidth of the network. A clear conclusion of this thesis is that adaptive streaming will in fact enable substantial numbers of users to enjoy live media streaming to their devices