FULL-REFERENCE COMPUTATION OF MOBILE CONTENT QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE IN REAL-TIME

• US 20130133011A1
• Filed: 06/20/2011
• Published: 05/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Inventors: Chhaochharia, Nikhil, Ramasangu, Hariharan, Koomullil, George Paulrose, Tulsian, Ashish
• Granted Patent: US 9,060,191 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/62
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/25 with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2408 Monitoring of the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. client requests monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876; scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/06 Testing, supervising or monitoring using simulated traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/10 Flow control between communication endpoints
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

Technologies are generally described for Quality of Experience (QoE) computation in a wireless content transmission environment. Portions of audio and/or video content transmitted to user devices may be selected by a service provider/content provider/user device and transmitted back from the user device for real-time QoE computation. Transmission quality may be adjusted based on the real-time QoE computations. Alternatively, selected portions of the content may be stored for subsequent computation and improvement. Selected portions of the data may be frames marked as such and reference frames may be selected based on the marked frames.

Claims

1-58. -58. (canceled)

59. A method for determining quality of experience (QoE) in a wireless system, the method comprising:

transmitting data to be played back at one or more user devices;

if sufficient bandwidth is available to receive one or more selected portions of the transmitted data through an upload channel, receiving the one or more selected portions of the transmitted data that can be reliably received for real time QoE computation at one of a service provider or a content provider from a user device; and

performing the QoE computation using the received portions of the transmitted data.

60. The method according to claim 59, further comprising one or more of:

determining which portions of the transmitted data are to be selected;

transmitting information associated with the portions of the transmitted data to be selected to the one or more user devices;

using the portions of the transmitted data to be selected as reference data portions to perform the QoE computation by comparing the reference portions with the received portions of the transmitted data, wherein the data includes at least one of video data and/or audio data.

61. The method according to claim 60, wherein the selected portions and the reference portions of the transmitted data are video frames and transmitting information associated with the portions of the transmitted data to be selected includes marking the video frames to be selected by the user device.

62. The method according to claim 60, further comprising:

adjusting one or more quality of service (QoS) parameters based on the QoE computation in real time; and

increasing an available bandwidth for the upload channel at one or more periods of non-peak data transmission by decreasing an available bandwidth for a download channel, wherein periods of non-peak data transmission include one or more of an advertisement break and a program break.

63. The method according to claim 60, further comprising:

adjusting one or more future quality of service (QoS) parameters based on the QoE computation.

64. The method according to claim 60, further comprising:

receiving the selected portions of the transmitted data during one or more quiet periods; and

storing the received portions of the transmitted data for subsequent QoE computation, wherein the quiet periods include low bandwidth demand periods.

65. The method according to claim 60, further comprising:

performing at least one of spatial and/or temporal alignment between the unimpaired reference frame and a corresponding frame, wherein the QoE computation includes comparing each pixel of an unimpaired reference frame of a portion of the transmitted data with each pixel of the corresponding frame of the received portion of the transmitted data.

66. The method according to claim 60, further comprising:

correlating results of the QoE computation with one or more of instantaneous QoS parameters, a location of the user device, a mobility of the user device, a signal strength at the user device, available memory at the user device, a processing capacity of the user device, and/or load on communication network.

67. A method for enabling computation of quality of experience (QoE) in a wireless system, the method comprising:

receiving data to be played back;

determining a portion of the received data to be transmitted to one of a service provider or content provider for QoE computation;

capturing the portion of the data to be transmitted to one of the service provider or content provider; and

if sufficient bandwidth is available to transmit the portion of the data through an upload channel, transmitting a largest possible the portion of the data to the service provider that can be reliably transmitted for real time QoE computation at one of the service provider or the content provider, wherein the data includes at least one of video data and/or audio data.

68. The method according to claim 67, further comprising:

receiving information associated with which portions of the received data to be selected from one of the service provider or content provider, wherein the selected portions of the received data are video frames and the information associated with the portions of the received data to be selected includes video frames marked by one of the service provider or the content provider.

69. The method according to claim 67, wherein the selected portions of the received data are video frames and the video frames of the received data to be transmitted to one of the service provider or the content provider are selected at a user device.

70. The method according to claim 69, further comprising:

transmitting identifiers of the selected video frames to one of the service provider or content provider such that reference frames for QoE computation are determined at one of the service provider or the content provider, wherein the video frames are selected based on one or more of an upload channel availability, a location of the user device, a mobility of the user device, a signal strength at the user device, available memory at the user device, and/or a processing capacity of the user device;

if sufficient bandwidth is not available to transmit the selected video frames, transmitting the selected video frames during one of a quiet period or a non-peak period for subsequent QoE computation at one of the service provider or the content provider.

71. A server providing an audio/video transmission service with quality of experience (QoE) computation over a wireless network, the server comprising:

a communication module adapted to communicate wirelessly with one or more user devices;

a memory adapted to store instructions; and

a processor coupled to the communication module and the memory, the processor adapted to;

transmit data to be played back at one or more user devices;

if sufficient bandwidth is available to receive one or more selected portions of the transmitted data from a user device, receive largest amount of the one or more portions of the transmitted data that can be reliably received for real time QoE computation at one of a service provider or a content provider; and

perform the QoE computation based on the received portions of the transmitted data, wherein the data includes at least one of video data and/or audio data.

72. The server according to claim 71, wherein the processor is further adapted to one or more of:

determine which portions of the transmitted data are to be selected;

transmit information associated with the portions of the transmitted data to be selected to the one or more user devices;

use the portions of the transmitted data to be selected as reference data portions to perform the QoE computation by comparing the reference portions with the received portions of the transmitted data;

transmit information associated with the portions of the transmitted data to be selected by marking video frames to be selected by the user device, wherein the selected portions and the reference portions of the transmitted data are video frames;

receive the selected portions of the transmitted data through an upload channel; and

adjust one or more quality of service (QoS) parameters based on the QoE computation in real time.

73. The server according to claim 72, wherein the processor is further adapted to one or more of:

increase an available bandwidth for the upload channel at one or more periods of non-peak video data transmission by decreasing an available bandwidth for a download channel;

receive the selected portions of the transmitted data during one or more quiet periods;

store the received portions of the transmitted data for subsequent QoE computation; and

adjust one or more future quality of service (QoS) parameters based on the subsequent QoE computation.

74. The server according to claim 71, wherein the processor is further adapted to:

compare each pixel of an unimpaired reference frame of a portion of the transmitted data with each pixel of a corresponding frame of the received portion of the transmitted data.

75. The server according to claim 71, wherein the processor is further adapted to:

correlate results of the QoE computation with one or more of instantaneous QoS parameters, a location of the user device, a mobility of the user device, a signal strength at the user device, available memory at the user device, a processing capacity of the user device, and/or load on communication network.

76. A computing device for receiving an audio/video transmission service with quality of experience (QoE) computation over a wireless network, the computing device comprising:

a communication module adapted to communicate wirelessly with a service provider;

a memory adapted to store instructions;

a processor coupled to the communication module and the memory, the processor adapted to;

receive data to be played back;

determine a portion of the received data to be transmitted to the service provider for QoE computation;

capture the portion of the data to be transmitted to the service provider; and

if sufficient bandwidth is available to transmit the portion of the data through an upload channel, transmit the a largest possible portion of the data to the service provider that can be reliably transmitted for the QoE computation at one of the service provider or a content provider, wherein the data includes at least one of video data and/or audio data.

77. The computing device according to claim 76, wherein the processor further adapted to:

receive information associated with which portions of the received data to be selected from the service provider, wherein the selected portions of the received data are video frames and the information associated with the portions of the received data to be selected includes video frames marked by the service provider.

78. The computing device according to claim 76, wherein the processor further adapted to:

transmit identifiers of the selected video frames to the service provider such that reference frames for QoE computation are determined at the service provider, and wherein the video frames are selected based on one or more of an upload channel availability, a location of the computing device, a mobility of the computing device, a signal strength at the computing device, available memory at the computing device, and/or a processing capacity of the user device.