Content adaptive tiling method based on user access preference for streaming panoramic video

Tiled streaming has been proposed for delivering ultra-high resolution videos such as zoomable online lectures or panoramas. In tiled streaming, the source video is first partitioned into grid of small rectangular tile groups. Each tile group is independently encoded and compressed. When an user asks for a certain viewport at a time, the server only streams the viewed tiles to save up bandwidth. However, not much work has been done on finding the best tiling method for streaming panoramic video. This paper proposes an effective tiling algorithm for tiled streaming by using both video content and user access preference distribution. Experimental results show that the proposed tiling method can save up to 32.4% and 69.8% of average streamed bitrate compared to conventional uniform tiling scheme and simply streaming the entire panorama respectively on equi-rectangular panoramic video.