Adaptive transcoding proxy architecture for video streaming in mobile networks

Wireless video streaming is an area of extensive research due to the error-prone nature of the radio channel with variations in throughput and delay. In mobile networks, handovers may lead to further service degradation. Therefore adaptation has to be applied in order to cope with these challenges. This paper introduces a new two-level proxy architecture, which addresses the aforementioned issues. The first level proxy provides media adaptation to the requirements of its clients by using transcoding techniques and thereby supports many different mobile devices. The second level proxy is supposed to perform adaptation to the radio channel by using FGS-coding as well as unequal error protection. We also discuss handover QoS issues and approaches for signaling with service composition. Our two-level design is highly flexible and provides efficient, scalable and low-latency mobile streaming video. Besides, it provides better core network resource utilization while solving wireless channel problems where they occur.