YouTube QoE on mobile devices: Subjective analysis of classical vs. adaptive video streaming

YouTube is the most popular service in the Internet and is increasingly consumed on mobile devices. With emerging adaptive video streaming technology, the question arises whether it should be also employed in the mobile context, which shows different characteristics in terms of display sizes and reliability of Internet connection. This paper compares YouTube QoE on mobile devices for both classical and adaptive video streaming based on a subjective lab experiment, in which different network conditions were emulated. Our results show that adaptive video streaming provides almost excellent results for the poorest network conditions. Thereby, it clearly outperforms classical video streaming, and thus, should be considered to achieve higher QoE in future mobile streaming applications.