Methods and systems for quantifying the holistic quality of experience for internet multimedia

• US 10,362,081 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2013
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: OptiMorphix, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Parthasarathy, Kannan
• Primary Examiner(s): Strange, Aaron N
• Application Number:
  US14/015,866
• Publication Number:
  US 20150067184A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,153 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/24 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of server load, available bandwidth, upstream requests monitoring of server performance or load G06F11/34; arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64723 Monitoring of network processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of network load traffic related reporting in data switching networks H04L43/062

Abstract

A system and method is provided for providing a composite Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics associated with a multimedia transmitted via a network. The method includes obtaining multimedia data corresponding to the multimedia transmitted via the network and acquiring metrics associated with the multimedia data. The metrics includes at least one multimedia transmitting metrics and at least one multimedia quality metrics. The method also includes normalizing the metrics and determining, based on the one or more normalized metrics, the composite multimedia QoE metrics.

Claims

1. A method for operating an adaptive traffic manager for a multimedia network, the method comprising:

receiving multimedia data associated with multimedia transmitted via the multimedia network;

acquiring metrics associated with the multimedia data, wherein the metrics includes at least one multimedia transmitting metrics and at least one multimedia quality metrics, wherein the multimedia transmitting metrics comprise a multimedia smoothness index obtained using a stalling time and a media time, wherein the stalling time represents the difference between an elapsed time of the multimedia and the media time;

normalizing the metrics; and

determining, based on the normalized metrics, the composite multimedia QoE metrics

providing, based on the composite multimedia QoE metrics, one or more traffic management optimization rules to be applied to the multimedia data so as to increase user experience when presented with the multimedia data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein normalizing the metrics comprises normalizing the multimedia transmitting metrics using an exponential decay model.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia quality metrics comprises at least one of:

a multimedia bitrate obtained using the size of the multimedia data and a media time;

a video frame size representing the number of pixels in a video frame of the multimedia data; and

a video frame rate representing a number of video frames transmitted in a unit time period associated with the multimedia data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein normalizing the metrics comprises normalizing the multimedia quality metrics using a logarithmic transformation.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the normalized metrics has a predetermined range.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the composite multimedia QoE metrics based on the normalized metrics comprises:

assigning weights corresponding to the normalized metrics; and

computing a composite multimedia QoE score based on the-normalized metrics and their corresponding weights.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the computing a composite multimedia QoE score based on the normalized metrics and their corresponding weights comprises computing the composite multimedia QoE score using a weighted geometric mean model.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia transmitting metrics further comprises a multimedia start delay obtained using a time delay for playing the video at a client device.

9. An adaptive traffic manager for a multimedia network comprising:

a traffic processing unit configured to receive multimedia data associated with multimedia transmitted via the multimedia network;

a multi-media Quality of Experience (QoE) measurement system comprising;

one or more data storage components configured to store normalized metrics associated with the obtained multimedia data, wherein the normalized metrics include at least one normalized multimedia transmitting metrics and at least one normalized multimedia quality metrics and wherein the normalized multimedia transmitting metrics correspond to multimedia transmitting metrics associated with the obtained multimedia data, the multimedia transmitting metrics comprise a multimedia smoothness index obtained using a stalling time and a media time, wherein the stalling time represents the difference between an elapsed time of the multimedia and the media time; and

one or more processors configured to determine, based on the normalized metrics, the composite multimedia QoE metrics; and

a traffic management rules engine configured to provide, based on the composite multimedia QoE metrics, one or more traffic management optimization rules to be applied to the multimedia data so as to increase user experience when presented with the multimedia data.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the normalized multimedia quality metrics correspond to multimedia quality metrics associated with the obtained multimedia data, the multimedia quality metrics comprise at least one of:

a multimedia bitrate obtained using the size of the multimedia data and a media time;

a video frame size representing the number of pixels in a video frame of the multimedia data; and

a video frame rate representing a number of video frames transmitted in a unit time period associated with the multimedia data.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the multimedia transmitting metrics further comprises a multimedia start delay obtained using a time delay for playing the video at a client device.

12. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a set of instructions that are executable by an adaptive traffic manager for a multimedia network to cause the adaptive traffic manager to perform steps comprising:

receiving multimedia data associated with multimedia transmitted via the multimedia network;

acquiring metrics associated with the multimedia data, wherein the includes at least one multimedia transmitting metrics and at least one multimedia quality metrics and wherein the multimedia transmitting metrics comprise a multimedia smoothness index obtained using a stalling time and a media time, wherein the stalling time represents the difference between an elapsed time of the multimedia and the media time;

normalizing the metrics; and

determining, based on the normalized metrics, the composite multimedia QoE metrics

providing, based on the composite multimedia QoE metrics, one or more traffic management optimization rules to be applied to the multimedia data so as to increase user experience when presented with the multimedia data.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein normalizing the metrics comprises normalizing the multimedia transmitting metrics using an exponential decay model.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the multimedia quality metrics comprises at least one of:

a multimedia bitrate obtained using the size of the multimedia data and a media time;

a video frame size representing the number of pixels in a video frame of the multimedia data; and

a video frame rate representing a number of video frames transmitted in a unit time period associated with the multimedia data.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein normalizing the metrics comprises normalizing the multimedia quality metrics using a logarithmic transformation.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the normalized metrics has a predetermined range.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the determining of the composite multimedia QoE metrics based on the normalized metrics comprises:

assigning weights corresponding to the normalized metrics; and

computing a composite multimedia QoE score based on the normalized metrics and their corresponding weights.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the computing a composite multimedia QoE score based on the normalized metrics and their corresponding weights comprises computing the composite multimedia QoE score using a weighted geometric mean model.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the multimedia transmitting metrics further comprises a multimedia start delay obtained using a time delay for playing the video at a client device.