Video-on-demand session management

A video-on-demand (VOD) system provides a service which enables users of the system to request in real time and the transmission of a video stream from a collection of available video material. Because different layers of a VOD system, one is resource management in the session and connection layer and the other is service control in the application layer, contain different interactive issues, a well design for controlling interactivities is needed. This paper studies a conceptual two-level gateway model to handle the system's interactions so as to build up an easy-extended VOD system. We present our work of implementing an Ethernet- based VOD system is easy to extend to an interactive multimedia system that builds up with multiple service providers and supply different kinds of services.

Modern reconfigurable systems are typically implemented in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) based on look-up tables (LUTs). Finite state machines (FSMs) perform the functions of control devices and are integral to reconfigurable systems. When designing reconfigurable systems, the problem of optimizing the area and performance of FSMs often arises. The FSM synthesis and state encoding methods generally use only one estimate of the FSM area or performance. However, regardless of the computational complexity of the FSM synthesis or state encoding method, if the estimate incorrectly reflects the optimization aim, the result is far from the optimal solution. This paper proposes several estimates of the area and performance of FSMs implemented in LUT-based FPGAs. The effectiveness of the proposed estimates was investigated using the sequential method for FSM state encoding. Experimental studies on benchmarks showed that the FSM area decreases on average from 3.8% to 6.5%, compared to known approaches (for some cases by 33.3%), while the performance increases on average from 3.5% to 7.3% (for some cases by 27.6%). Recommendations for the practical use of the proposed estimates are also provided. The Conclusions section highlights promising directions for future research.

Chapter 2 - Statecharts

Finite state machine (FSM) plays an important role in digital circuit design. Since it stores the system states and controls system functionality, security vulnerabilities of FSM have been exploited extensively. Among the potential attacks, fault inject attack (FIA) is one of the most severe and most challenging to defend against. Unlike existing countermeasures, we propose a novel structure for FSM state flip flop design that can mitigate any kind of timing based FIAs. Our key idea is to sample the flip flop input signals multiple times during one clock cycle, and then compare these values to determine the correct one. This can effectively defeat all the FIAs based on violating FSM state setup time constraint. In addition, such design will make the design more robust against jitters. In order to reduce the design overhead, we use the low-cost transmission gates to implement the proposed latch and flip flop. We use Hspice to simulate the error conditions with delayed input data and jitter and the results confirm that our design is error resilient. We also implement the FSM in AES with our proposed flip flops and compare the area overhead with existing FIA countermeasures. Results show that the two state-of-the-art approaches have 2X and 4X area overhead than ours.

Adaptive distinguishing experiments with nondeterministic Finite State Machines (FSMs) are widely used for deriving tests with the guaranteed fault coverage for reactive discrete event systems. For test minimization, adaptive distinguishing sequences of minimal length that distinguish as many states as possible are most interesting. However, it is known that in general, the length of an (adaptive) input sequence distinguishing states of a nondeterministic FSM can be exponential with respect to the number of FSM states. This paper is devoted to deriving adaptive distinguishing sequences for a nondeterministic FSM of a special class with the length that is polynomial with respect to the number of FSM states.

As computer and network technology advance, multimedia data can be transferred in real time on the Internet. The increasing user demands for various multimedia data make VOD (Video-on-Demand) services to be developed. VOD services are being used in lots of fields, such as entertainment, distance learning, home shopping, and interactive news. In comparison to the existing HTTP services, these VOD services have special features that the time for their services is longer and the services request more disks and network bandwidths. Therefore, compared to HTTP service environments, VOD services have some different workload patterns. In these VOD service environments, the existing load balancing algorithms researched before are not proper. In this paper, we propose a new load balancing algorithm that is based on the history of past user access patterns to make server loads even on hierarchically distributed VOD system environments. This algorithm uses a dynamic genetic algorithm. The proposed distributed VOD system environment consists of a number of VOD servers, which are distributed geographically, and control servers that manage each group of VOD servers. User requests are distributed to prevent convergence by distributing VOD servers geographically. We use a genetic algorithm based on history data to distribute user requests in a local service area. The information of user requests and services is stored and referred in a database as history data. By applying these history data to the fitness function of genetic algorithms, we implemented the genetic algorithm and operations for VOD systems. The load balancing algorithm proposed in this paper can distributed workloads by predicting workloads precisely on VOD environments.

Proposes a dynamic load-balancing technique for a video-on-demand (VOD) server system which is responsible for transmitting video stream data to a client's set-top box (STB), and shows the result from a VOD system designed to incorporate our proposed load-balancing scheme. Our load-balancing technique is an application of the extended gradient model, in which we modify and update the control parameters and extend the 2D load map to 3D [we call this the "workload distribution surface" (WDS)], taking into consideration the operational factors of the VOD service, such as the quality of service (QoS). The objective is to use the power of the VOD server efficiently, so that we can enhance the performance of the server and build a VOD server system which provides many more services with good quality to subscribers.

In contrast to classical assumptions in Video on Demand (VoD) research, the main requirements for VoD in the Internet are adaptiveness, support of heterogeneity, and last not least high scalability. Hierarchically layered video encoding is particularly well suited to deal with adaptiveness and heterogeneity support for video streaming. A distributed caching architecture is key to a scalable VoD solution in the Internet. Thus, the combination of caching and layered video streaming is promising for an Internet VoD system, yet, requires thoughts about some new issues and challenges, e.g., how to keep layered transmissions TCP-friendly. In this paper, we investigate one particular of these issues: how can a TCP-friendly transmission exploit its fair share of network resources taking into account that the constrained granularity of layer encoded video inhibits an exact adaptation to actual transmission rates. We present a new technique that makes use of retransmissions of missing segments for a cached layered video to claim the fair share within a TCP-friendly session. Based on simulative experiments the potential and applicability of the technique, which we also call fair share claiming is shown. Moreover, a design for the integration of fair share claiming in streaming applications which are supported by caching is devised.

To keep pace with world-wide integrating trend of telecommunication and broadcasting service, we have developed a DAVIC (Digital Audio-Visual Council) compliant ATM-based VOD (Video On Demand) system. The resources and sessions required to provide video on demand service should be managed so, we have implemented DSM-CC UN (Digital Storage Media Command and Control User-to-Network) protocol. From the DSM-CC UN perspective, an ATM connection is merely one type of resource needed within a video on demand service session, but DSM-CC UN should use Q.2931 protocol to actually create the ATM connection. In this paper, we focus on how DSM-CC UN can be used to manage sessions and resources for video on demand service with Q.293I protocol in the ATM network.

The phenomenon of Video Streaming in Thailand in 2015 created online-movie providers or Video on-demand providers through Streaming with legal copyrights no less than ten providers, including a lot of the providers who infringed the copyrights. It was consistent with the consumers’ behaviors in the present time who needed convenience in hands and could not tolerate with any long waiting for anything anymore. With watching movies through Video Streaming, the viewers could be able to watch the movies through electronic gadgets connecting to the Internet conveniently, easily, and promptly. (NBTC, 2020) Nowadays, in Thailand the online-movie providers or Streaming were increasing, and the competition marketing in Thailand was seriously taken. Hollywood HDTV was the first online-movie provider in Thailand, which pioneered the market by providing Streaming focusing on the service of movie variety that included from the classic movies to the international movies. After that, Primetime was the second online-movie provider, which came to open the market in Thailand by highlighting the new movies and the swiftness of bringing the new movies into the online service. Next, it was Iflix, the famous movie provider from Indonesia, which concentrated the buffet online-movies, and another remarkable feature of Iflix was gathering the popular Western series to the utmost. For the main video streaming service provider with SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), It was to provide watching online-TV by collecting monthly service fee, which the viewers could select to the movies to watch backwards. In Thailand, Netflix was the major provider as in many countries, which came to open the market by merging with many famous content creators of Thailand to produce and broadcast Thai series in some platforms such as Netflix, including Disney Plus, Mono Max, and Prime Video as well (NBTC, 2020). Providing the viewing movies through the Internet whether downloading or Streaming quite affected both the viewers and the service providers, together with the advance of the Internet technology, which was the key factor influencing the viewers to be able to access the movie sources easier because in the past, watching movies could be accessible in the movie theater platform only. Therefore, it caused the competition, and the movie industry businesspeople must adjust themselves in terms of the content to be watched. Hence, with all the factors mentioned, the researcher was interested in studying the strategy of creating the movie contents, which were different from the conventional watching movies in the movie theater. When digital technology came to redesign the watching movie platform of the viewers, it was prone to have other factors affecting the movie contents, which formerly were created to show in the movie theater only; however, presently it was the era of “Content is the King,” and based on Streaming, it was the opportunity and the extreme challenge for the content providers to create the attractive contents and make the profits for the movie businesspeople on the digital media.

Video on Demand (VoD) and video streaming is a type of service used on multimedia networksthrough the internet (www) to make things easier users access the broadcast that is life. This requires a reliablenetwork for the video to be displayed get maximum results, where this research implemented using MPLS-TE(Multi-Protocol Label Switching-Traffic Engineering). The key feature of MPLS is its TE, which plays a vitalrole in minimizing the congestion by efficient load balancing and management of the network resources. Dueto lower network delay, efficient forwarding mechanism, enhancing the speed of packet transfer, scalabilityand predictable performance of the services provided by MPLS technology makes it more suitable forimplementing real-time applications such as VoIP and video streaming. This paper evaluated the performancemeasures such as transfer time, delay, throughput using OSPF as routing protocol and tunneling to determinethe inside path the process of different types of traffic (video on demand, video streaming) in their movementin a network MPLS-TE. Test results from Quality of Service (QoS) analysis taken minimum delay value in thereference journal MPLS-VPN which reached 9.0 while the maximum value in MPLS-TE obtained on theanalysis that is with the value 0.015.

The presented solution supports innovative ways of manipulating computer multimedia content, such as: static images, videos and music clips and others that can be browsed subsequently. The system requires a standard web camera that captures images of the user face. The core of the system is formed by a head movement analyzing algorithm that finds a user face and tracks head movements in real time. Head movements are tracked with a Finite State Machine. State transitions are triggered by various spatial and temporal conditions. Whenever a state of the machine changes, an event is sent to the GUI application supposed to react accordingly. The system is immune to the presence of many faces in a video stream; only one face is tracked. The application is especially suitable to standalone, multimedia terminals where users may get acquainted with a company profile, situation layout or a store offer in a fast and convenient way. The application may also be used by disabled people.

Recognizing user activities unobtrusively is very important for offering context aware services in pervasive computing environments. Because of their ability to classify given inputs in a simple and efficient manner, Finite State Machine(FSM)s have good potential to be used for recognizing user activities. However, the manual construction of FSMs in the existing methods require a domain expert with enough insight to dissect the activity of interest into an FSM. Obviously, this requirement imposes huge burden on the experts when constructing FSMs for recognizing activities that are not so repetitive in nature. In this paper, we propose a method for automatic construction of an FSM that can be used to recognize user activities in real time. The proposed method gives promising results when tested with publicly available smart home datasets.

Dedications. Preface. Organizational and Topical Coverage. Who should read this book. Acknowledgements. About the Author. Foreword. Chapter 1. The Ultimate Viewing Experience. 1.1 Defining IPTV. 1.2 Differences between IPTV and Internet TV. 1.3 Overview of an IPTV Networking Infrastructure. 1.4 Key IPTV Applications and Services. 1.5 Growth Drivers for IPTV. 1.6 Market Data. 1.7 Industry Initiatives to Standardize IPTV. 1.8 Summary. Chapter 2. IPTV Network Distribution Technologies. 2.1 'Last Mile' Broadband Distribution Network Types. 2.2 IPTV over a Fiber Access Network. 2.3 IPTV over an ADSL Network. 2.4 Next Generation Cable TV Networks. 2.5 IPTV over a Satellite Based Network. 2.6 IPTV over Wireless Networks. 2.7 IPTV over the Interne t. 2.8 IPTV Backbone Technologies. 2.9 Network Factors Associated with Deploying IPTV. 2.10 Summary. Chapter 3. IPTV Real Time Encoding and Transportation. 3.1 Introduction to Real-Time Encoding. 3.2 Compression Methods. 3.3 Packetizing and Encapsulating Video Content. 3.4 Summary. Chapter 4. Broadcasting Linear Programming over IPTV. 4.1 Underlying Video Components of an end-to-end IPTV System. 4.2 Different Approaches to Streaming IPTV Content. 4.3 Multicasting across an IPTV Network. 4.4 IPTV Multicasting Networking Architecture. 4.5 Multicasting IPTV Content across IPV6 Networks. 4.6 Introduction to Channel Changing. 4.7 Fundamentals of Channel Changing. 4.8 Techniques for Speeding up IPTV Channel Changing Times. 4.9 Discovering Channel Program Information. 4.10 Time Shifting Multicast IPTV. 4.11 Channel Changing Industry Initiatives. 4.12 Summary. Chapter 5. IPTV Consumer Devices (IPTVCDs). 5.1 About Residential Gateways. 5.2 RG Technology Architecture. 5.3 RG Functionality. 5.4 RG Industry Standards. 5.5 Introduction to Digital Set-top Boxes. 5.6 The Evolution of Digital Set-top Boxes. 5.7 Categories of Digital Set-top Boxes. 5.8 Major Technological Trends for Digital Set-Top Boxes. 5.9 IP Set-top Boxes Defined. 5.10 Types of IP Set-top Boxes. 5.11 Other Emerging IPTV Consumer Devices. 5.12 Summary. Chapter 6. IPTVCD Software Architecture. 6.1 What Makes an IPTVCD Tick? 6.2 Interactive TV Middleware Standards. 6.3 Proprietary Middleware Solutions. 6.4 Summary. Chapter 7. IPTV Conditional Access and DRM Systems. 7.1 Introduction to IPTV Security. 7.2 Defining IPTV CA Security Systems. 7.3 CA Industry Initiatives. 7.4 Introduction to Next Generation DRM Solutions. 7.5 IPTV Intranet Protection. 7.6 Summary. Chapter 8. Moving IPTV around the House. 8.1 About Whole Home Media Networking (WHMN). 8.2 WHMN Enabling Technologies. 8.3 Fast Ethernet & Gigabit Ethernet (GigE). 8.4 802.11n. 8.5 HomePlug AV. 8.6 UPA-DHS. 8.7 HomePNA(t) 3.1. 8.8 WHMN Middleware Software Standards. 8.9 QoS and WHMN Applications. 8.10 Summary. Chapter 9. Video-on-Demand (VoD) over IP Delivery Networks. 9.1 History of Pay-Per-View. 9.2 Understanding PPV. 9.3 The Emergence of RF and IP Based VoD. 9.4 Types of IP-VoD Services. 9.5 Underlying Building Blocks of an end-to-end IP-VoD Infrastructure. 9.6 Video Server Architectures. 9.7 Integrating IP-VoD Applications with other IP based Services. 9.8 Protecting IP-VoD Content. 9.9 Summary. Chapter 10. IP Based High Definition TV. 10.1 Overview of SDTV and HDTV Technologies. 10.2 HDTV over IP Defined. 10.3 An end-to-end IP HDTV System. 10.4 Summary. Chapter 11. Interactive IPTV applications. 11.1 The Evolution of iTV. 11.2 About iTV. 11.3 Interactive IPTV Applications. 11.4 IPTV Program Related Interaction Applications. 11.5 Deploying Interactive IPTV Applications. 11.6 Accessibility to IPTV Services. 11.7 Summary. Chapter 12. IPTV Network Administration. 12.1 An Introduction to IPTV Network Administration. 12.2 Supporting the IPTV Networking Management System (NMS). 12.3 Managing Installation, Service Problems, and Terminations. 12.4 Network Testing and Monitoring. 12.5 Ensuring Service Availability and Managing Redundancy. 12.6 IP Address Space Management. 12.7 Routine IT and Network Administrative Tasks. 12.8 Managing IPTV Quality of Service (QoS) Requirements. 12.9 Monitoring the IPTV Subscriber Experience. 12.10 Remotely Managing in-Home Digital Consumer Devices. 12.11 Scheduling and Managing Delivery of Software Updates to IPTVCDs. 12.12 Troubleshooting IPTV Problems. 12.13 IPTV and Business Continuity Planning. 12.14 Summary. Index.

Recent advances in residential broadband access technologies have led to a wave of commercial IPTV deployments. As IPTV services are rolled out at scale, it is essential for IPTV systems to maintain ultra-high reliability and performance. A major issue that disrupts IPTV service is the crash of the set-top box (STB) software. The STB directly resides inside the consumer's home network and provides the essential interface to both the user and the network to deliver rich content that goes well beyond traditional TV. To understand the potential causes of STB crashes, we perform an indepth statistical analysis focused on the relationships between STB crashes, video stream content, and user activities. Our initial results suggest that (i) impaired video streams may cause STB crashes, and (ii) continuous STB usage may gradually degrade the STB health over time.