A Prototyping Tool for Analysis and Modeling of Video Transmission Traces over IP Networks

In the best-effort IP network, packet delay/loss will inevitably degrade the perceptual quality of real-time multimedia service, such as Voice-over-IP (VoIP), Video-on- Demand (VoD), etc. Modeling, prototyping, and analysis of traffic traces have always been very important and challenging topics in the area of multimedia communication. In general, packet loss/delay exhibits temporal dependence. Different prototyping tools, such as Bernoulli model, Gilbert model, Extended Gilbert model, Markov model, etc, have been proposed to model network trace. In this research, one VoD server and three clients have been setup to simulate a real VoD system. Different models have been applied to analyze and model the video transmission network traces obtained under RTP/UDP/IP protocol stack. Compared to the other tools, Markov model offers the best prototyping precision, in the sense of loss-run distribution and Forward Error Correction (FEC) performance prediction. As a powerful fast prototyping tool, Markov model will be very useful to model and analyze network traces and further improve the QoS in multimedia-over-IP.