Solutions for improving rich media streaming quality in heterogeneous network environments

Growing amounts of data is exchanged globally, especially with the latest increase in the number and types of smart devices, from smartphones to smart TVs, which enable both generation and consumption of rich media content. In a global context, in which the internet traffic is expected to exceed several zettabytes per year and the video traffic is estimated to exceed 82% of the total data traffic by 2022, respectively, there is a significant pressure on the underlying network infrastructure to support high quality of these rich media services. The improved wired and guided network infrastructure and emerging 5G networks, and evolving LTE and Wi-Fi networks, are providing increasing bandwidth support and improved Quality of Service for these applications. However the pressure the rich media content, including omnidirectional, 4K, 3D, HD video, and VR/AR applications place on these networks is also increasing with a high rate, mostly due to the number and range of services as well as the increasing number of users. As a consequence, the increased latency and loss affects the users’ Quality of Experience when consuming these rich media services. However, a simple increase in system capacity will not be enough and alternative solutions are required to fix the provisioning of QoE for rich media streaming applications. This chapter describes such solutions, including adaptive multimedia and multisensorial media delivery schemes, which were proposed to improve the overall user perceived quality, energy efficiency and/or network utilisation.