Experimental analysis of video performance over wireless local area networks

This paper quantifies the performance degradation of video streaming over WLAN network (IEEE 802.11g) due to distance, obstacles and motion. Wireless networks are generally marked by the presence of noise and channel interferences which present an overhead to video quality. First, we present the research done on the metrics used for performance assessment which are: PSNR, transmission delay, jitter, and packet loss; the way they affect the quality of the video, and why they are considered in this study. Thereafter, we describe the tools used in this research and the way they were deployed. From the results, we find that distance and obstacles do have a negative effect on video performance. Moreover, background traffic does create a sort of bottleneck to the bandwidth making it difficult for the video to be well streamed. Additionally, both the delay and jitter increase with distance and background traffic. Finally, the effects of motion on video are mainly due to packet loss. Results have shown that even in small distances between the access point and the receiver, packet loss seems to be the major impact of motion on video performance over WLANs.