A scene-aware adaptive media playout algorithm for wireless video streaming

This paper addresses the issue of buffer underflow in wireless multimedia service, due to both the unreliable and time-varying nature of the wireless channel. Specifically, we propose a statistical model to estimate the buffer underflow time. Based on the estimation of the underflow time, a scene-aware adaptive playout algorithm with dual-threshold to adjust the frame rate is presented. This approach adjusts the threshold dynamically according to the channel conditions and the status of the buffer, and thus regulates the frame rate timely. Moreover, the algorithm possesses scene-aware characteristics, since it adjusts the playout rate according to the motion intensity of the playout scenes to reduce the underflow probability of the buffer and provides better QoS. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme efficiently reduces the probability of the buffer underflow and provides better visual quality.