Low Latency Server-Side Standards-Compliant HTTP Adaptive Streaming

Abstract

Video is frequently delivered over the internet using HTTP Adaptive Streaming where clients make HTTP requests for short segments of video, with an ABR algorithm choosing the quality at which to request each segment. But this approach has limitations for live content with end-to-end latency often 30-60s.We describe the containerised test system we have developed to evaluate the performance of an alternative architecture in which encoding and packaging, and client applications remain unchanged, but where QUIC is used instead of TCP, and the server runs an ABR algorithm tightly coupled to QUIC, using delivery parameters from QUIC to make ABR decisions, and instructing QUIC of the rate at which to deliver data. We present results that show this approach to be promising, enabling content to be delivered using adaptive bit rate streaming with consistent low latency while being fair to competing traffic