Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications,
Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI
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Multimedia Transmission over 3G Mobile Networks

Goal: Development of techniques for efficient media delivery over 3G mobile channels.

The rollout of the 3rd generation mobile networks is currently applied. Higher transmission rates, dedicated transmission techniques and powerful end user devices allow offering different services including video transmission to mobile customers. This projects aims at the development of adaptive transmission techniques for H.264/MPEG4-AVC over 3rd generation mobile networks with special emphasis on the video reception quality. First we analyze the properties of the WCDMA channel, which is used for UMTS in Europe. For video data transmission adapted to the channel, a Transmission Rate Control has been optimized and deployed in the system. Furthermore, offline video adaptation techniques like H.264/MPEG4-AVC bit stream switching and the dropping of none referenced pictures of the Baseline Profile for adaptation in cases where the required media data rate is not available by the channel. 3GPP SA4 has standardized an additional buffer report packet format for RTCP, which has been extensively used for feedback about the client buffer for applying media adaptation techniques. Another analyzed adaptation technique is the Audio/Video Frame Interleaving, which is especially useful in case of link outages.

A streaming testbed based on the 3GPP Rel.6 features has been developed and presented at 3GPP SA4 meetings. The streaming system presented within the testbed contains all features specified by 3GPP for adaptive and reliable transmission of media data via 3G mobile channels. Based on these features server and client specific methods have been developed and implemented for optimizing the transmission of the H.264/MPEG4-AVC based video stream. Furthermore we have shown that the use of retransmission on the RTP layer can achieve explicit quality improvements. The effect of retransmission has been presented at 3GPP and by that the standardization process regarding the RTP feedback and retransmission at 3GPP has been brought forward.

Adaptive Streaming Testbed using 3GPP Rel. 6 features

Audio/Video Frame Interleaving Buffer

A=Audio Frame; Video frames: IDR, P(referenced P-slice), p(none referenced P-slice). Transmission is applied in a prioritized way from highest priority level (A) to lowest level (p). After client buffer has reached Frame Limits ordinary Earliest Deadline First (EDF) transmission is applied.

Publications

Publications in Journals

2007

  • Thomas Schierl and Thomas Wiegand:
    Mobile video transmission using SVC,
    IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, scheduled March 2007, Invited Paper.

2006

  • Thomas Schierl, Karsten Gänger, Thomas Wiegand, and Thomas Stockhammer:
    SVC-based Multi Source Streaming for Robust Video Transmission in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks,
    IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, scheduled September 2006, Invited Paper.

Publications in Conference Proceedings

2006

  • Thomas Schierl, Karsten Gänger, Cornelius Hellge, Thomas Stockhammer, and Thomas Wiegand:
    Multi Source Streaming for Robust Video Transmission in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks,
    IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP'06), Atlanta, GA, USA, October 2006.
  • Günther Liebl, Thomas Schierl, Thomas Wiegand, and Thomas Stockhammer:
    Advanced Wireless Multiuser Video Streaming Using the Scalable Video Coding Extension of H.264/MPEG4-AVC,
    IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME'06), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 2006.
  • Thomas Schierl, Karsten Gänger, Cornelius Hellge, Thomas Stockhammer, and Thomas Wiegand:
    Multi-Source Based Video Streaming for Robust Real-Time Media Delivery in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks,
    Second International Workshop on Multi-hop Ad hoc Networks, Florence, Italy, May 2006.

2005

  • Thomas Schierl, Markus Kampmann, and Thomas Wiegand:
    3GPP Compliant Adaptive Wireless Video Streaming Using H.264/MPEG4-AVC,
    IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP'05), Genova, Italy, September 2005.
  • Thomas Schierl, Markus Kampmann, and Thomas Wiegand:
    H.264/AVC Interleaving for 3G Wireless Video Streaming,
    IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME'05), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 2005.

2003

  • Thomas Stockhammer and Thomas Wiegand:
    H.264/AVC for Wireless Applications,
    IEEE International Workshop on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MoMuC), Munich, Germany, October 2003.
  • Thomas Stockhammer, Günther Liebl, Hrvoje Jenkac, Peter Strasser, Daniel Pfeifer, Joachim Hagenauer, Thomas Wiegand, and Tobias Hinz:
    Real-time Demonstration of MPEG-4 based Video Telephony over Wireless Systems using WiNe,
    IEEE International Workshop on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MoMuC), Munich, Germany, October 2003.

2002

  • Toomas Stockhammer, Tobias Oelbaum, and Thomas Wiegand:
    H.26L Video Transmisson in 3G Wireless Environments,
    Proc. of International Conference on Third Generation Wireless and Beyond (3Gwireless'02), May 2002, San Francisco, CA, USA.