Title page for ETD etd-0422104-195255

Document Type thesis

Author Name Nichols III, James G

Email Address jnick at alum.wpi.edu

URN etd-0422104-195255

Title Measurement of Windows Streaming Media

Degree MS

Department Computer Science

Advisors
Mark Claypool, Advisor
Robert Kinicki, Co-Advisor
David Finkel, Reader
Michael Gennert, Department Head

Keywords
networks
performance evaluation
streaming media
measurement

Date of Presentation/Defense 2003-12-08

Availability unrestricted

Abstract
The growth of high speed Internet connections has fueled an
increase in the demand for high quality streaming video. In
order to satisfy timing constraints, streaming video typically
uses UDP as the default network transport protocol.
Unfortunately, UDP does not have any end-to-end congestion
control mechanisms, and so in the absence of higher layer
congestion control can lead to unfairness and possibly
congestion collapse. While there has been research done in
video measurement and characterization using custom tools, to
the best of our knowledge, there have been no measurement
studies where the researchers had control over a commercial
streaming media server and client, and control of the network
conditions and content. A goal of this research is to characterize
the bitrate response of Windows Streaming Media in response to
network-level metrics such as capacity, loss rate, and round-trip
time. We build a streaming media test bed that allows us to
systematically vary network and content encoding
characteristics. We analyze responsiveness by comparing
streaming media flows to TCP-friendly flows under various
streaming configurations and network conditions. We find
Windows Streaming Media has a prominent buffering phase in
which it sends data at a bitrate significantly higher than the
steady-state rate. Overall, Windows Streaming Media is
responsive to available capacity, but is often unfair to TCP.
Knowledge of streaming media's response to congestion
encountered in the network is important in building networks
that better accommodate their turbulence. The additional
characteristics we measure can be combined to guide emulation
or simulation configurations and network traffic generators for
use in further research.

Files
thesis.pdf

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Document Type	thesis
Author Name	Nichols III, James G
Email Address	jnick at alum.wpi.edu
URN	etd-0422104-195255
Title	Measurement of Windows Streaming Media
Degree	MS
Department	Computer Science
Advisors	Mark Claypool, Advisor Robert Kinicki, Co-Advisor David Finkel, Reader Michael Gennert, Department Head
Keywords	networks performance evaluation streaming media measurement
Date of Presentation/Defense	2003-12-08
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract The growth of high speed Internet connections has fueled an increase in the demand for high quality streaming video. In order to satisfy timing constraints, streaming video typically uses UDP as the default network transport protocol. Unfortunately, UDP does not have any end-to-end congestion control mechanisms, and so in the absence of higher layer congestion control can lead to unfairness and possibly congestion collapse. While there has been research done in video measurement and characterization using custom tools, to the best of our knowledge, there have been no measurement studies where the researchers had control over a commercial streaming media server and client, and control of the network conditions and content. A goal of this research is to characterize the bitrate response of Windows Streaming Media in response to network-level metrics such as capacity, loss rate, and round-trip time. We build a streaming media test bed that allows us to systematically vary network and content encoding characteristics. We analyze responsiveness by comparing streaming media flows to TCP-friendly flows under various streaming configurations and network conditions. We find Windows Streaming Media has a prominent buffering phase in which it sends data at a bitrate significantly higher than the steady-state rate. Overall, Windows Streaming Media is responsive to available capacity, but is often unfair to TCP. Knowledge of streaming media's response to congestion encountered in the network is important in building networks that better accommodate their turbulence. The additional characteristics we measure can be combined to guide emulation or simulation configurations and network traffic generators for use in further research.
Files	thesis.pdf