Proposal and evaluation of Joint Rate Control for stored video streaming

Rate control, which involves adapting the sending rate and video rate to network environments, is effective for stably streaming stored video over unmanaged IP networks. In this paper, we propose a novel rate control technique for optimizing the evaluation function defined as user-perceived video quality using an optimal control law in modern control theory. We call our method Joint Rate Control because it integrally controls both the sending rate and video rate. The results of numerical evaluation show that Joint Rate Control improved the evaluation function value by about 20%-50% from that of a conventional rate control method. We have demonstrated that Joint Rate Control optimizes the video quality; that is, this control method was the most effective in streaming video.