Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Media Transport MMT for 4K/8K Video Transmission

Media Transport MMT for 4K/8K Video Transmission
MPEG MMT [15] succeeds MPEG-2 TS as the media transport solution for broadcasting and IP network content distribution, with the aim of serving new applications like UHD, second screen, ..., etc, with full support of HTML5 and simplification of  packetization and synchronization with a pure IP based transport. It has the following technology innovations:
● Convergence of IP transport and HTML 5 presentation
● Multiplexing of various streaming components from different sources
● Simplification of TS stack and easy conversion between storage file format and streaming format
● Support multiple devices and hybird delivery
● Advanced QoS/QoE engineering features

To achieve efficient delivery of MPEG Media data over heterogeneous IP networks, MMT defines
encapsulation formats, delivery protocols, and signalling message formats as shown




● “Everything that can be streamed over the Internet will be”
● Netflix/Youtube/ has announced 4K streaming
● Netflix rules the streaming world (at least in North America)
● How does Netflix's streaming video service work?
– Cloud-based virtual (and actual) servers on Amazon's EC2
– HTTP used as both a network and media protocol
– Network content caching provided by third-party Content  Delivery Networks (Akamai, Level 3, Limelight)
● A too quick conclusion: The best way to stream 4K/8K video is  to deploy a global HTTP-based delivery service on top of Amazon's Cloud with a helping hand from Akamai and friends As a result of Netflix's lead, will all 4K/8K streams originate from within the Cloud?

– Will 4K/8K streaming simply be another form of Cloud-based video?
● Apart from Netflix's streaming activities, video (including 4K/8K and Digital Cinema) is already moving to the Cloud
– Cloud-based production
– Cloud-based workflow
– Cloud-based storage

● Is the Cloud ready for 4K/8K streaming?
– Should we worry about the stress that 4K/8K streaming, with  its extreme bit-rates, will place on Internet servers and Cloud infrastructure?

How high will the streaming video spike be when:
– 1080p High Definition streaming is common with bit-rates of  5+ Mbps (versus only 300-500 Kbps now)?
– LTE/4G networks are ubiquitous and Tablets and SmartPhones  start receiving 2-6 Mbps video streams?
● The spike will be off the chart with 25 Mbps 4K streams

CloudMost Internet Video is transmitted from the Cloud
● The rapid growth of Internet Video has triggered a dramatic increase in Data Centres worldwide ...
● ... which has ignited explosive growth in the number of  Internet servers
● Estimated 75 million Internet servers today (Gautam Shroff, The Intelligent Web)
– But could be much higher: Actual total unknown!!
● 785,293,473 web sites worldwide as of November 2013 (Netcraft Web Server Survey)
– Microsoft has 1 million servers (source: Steve Balmer, Microsoft)
– Google is on its way to 10 million servers (source: Google)
4K/8K Challenge: Efficient Protocols
● Streaming protocols in wide use today were not designed for the 25-100 megabits/second rates of 4K/8K streaming
● HTTP (Hyper-Text Transport Protocol) problems:
– Stateless, text-based protocol designed for delivering HTML
and images, not video
● HTTP 2.0 offers some efficiency improvements
● RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) problems:
– No support for network quality of service (QoS)
– RTP's accompanying Real Time Control Protocol adds
complexity
– Must be modified on an ad-hoc basis to meet the requirements
of high bit-rate, low-latency streaming (see: BBC Research &
Development WHP 268)

4K/8K Challenge: Efficient Protocols
● Streaming protocols in wide use today were not designed for  the 25-100 megabits/second rates of 4K/8K streaming
● HTTP (Hyper-Text Transport Protocol) problems:
– Stateless, text-based protocol designed for delivering HTML and images, not video
● HTTP 2.0 offers some efficiency improvements
● RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) problems:
– No support for network quality of service (QoS)
– RTP's accompanying Real Time Control Protocol adds complexity
– Must be modified on an ad-hoc basis to meet the requirements of high bit-rate, low-latency streaming (see: BBC Research & Development WHP 268)

MMT in the Future Internet
Even though it is nowadays clear that almost all transport-layer protocols are converging to IP
regardless of their characteristics, today’s Internet architecture is not optimal for multimedia
services. Therefore, future networks such as CCNs will not only provide a better network
architecture for multimedia delivery, but will also require a multimedia transport solution that is
more aware of a delivery network’s requirements. MMT address such requirements, both by
exposing the detailed information required by the underlying delivery layer that is agnostic to the
specific media type and by defining an application-layer protocol that is optimized for multimedia
delivery.

Reference:
1. Streaming 4K/8K Video over IP Networks
2. Codec Technology
3. Media Transport MMT for 4K/8K Video Transmission


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