Multimedia Streaming by Broadband Connection Ð Future Prospects and Development Strategy at Oki Electric
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Multimedia Streaming by Broadband Connection – Future Prospects and Development Strategy at Oki Electric Atsushi Nagasaka The rapid spread of broadband access networks, In view of this situation, although MPEG2 over ATM most recently in the form of ADSL links, means that high- did become popular in normal and satellite broadcasting quality video streaming is now a real possibility. systems, and the like, it did not take root in a general Video streaming is widely regarded as the “killer sense. application” in broadband networks, and it involves a whole range of issues relating to IP networks, including quality of service (QoS), transmission delays, delivery Video streaming systems costs, service models comparable to current broadcast services, copyright protection, and so on. From an early (1) Internet video streaming stage, we at Oki Electric have been developing Video streaming has changed massively with the technology for video transmission over IP networks, with rapid growth in the Internet since 1995. In the United a view to the coming broadband generation. States, where CATV coverage is high and comparatively In this essay, I review the latest trends in video fast access networks are commonplace, increased streaming over broadband networks, taking a look at Oki bandwidth in backbone networks, along with other Electric’s development strategy in this area. developments, have led to the spread of music delivery via the Internet, since 1998, followed subsequently by video streaming technology. Video delivery systems These streaming technologies do not guarantee high quality in video transmission, but instead absorb any Due to the real time characteristics of video and the delay or jitter on the network by providing a large buffer large data volumes it involves, dedicated high-speed on the terminal side. Therefore, one of their drawbacks is circuits have been used as an alternative to broadcasting the delay that occurs before transmission starts. systems for video transmission, and the advent of the (2) Content delivery networks MPEG image compression technology has made cost- CDN (Content Delivery Network) technology has effective video transmission and delivery a possibility. developed as a result of the spread of WWW systems. It This, combined with the development of video telephony is suitable for video delivery and has spurred cost standards, such as H.320/323, and other advances reduction and expansion in video streaming systems. made since the early 1990s, such as increased computer The transitions in CDN technology are listed below. speeds, development of cheap, fast storage technology ➀ Internet WWW cache server RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks), and high- In order to avoid simultaneous access bottlenecks in speed network technology, has enabled great progress WWW servers due to the rapid growth of Web-based to be made in the technical development of computer- Internet use, ISPs have introduced distributed cache based VOD (Video On Demand) systems. In 1995, the servers. industry group DAVIC (Digital Audio-Visual Consortium) ➁ Construction of carrier-based broadband CDN was set up in order to achieve standardization in the field networks of video transmission, and applications, such as VOD, Due to the recognized problems in delivering high-bit- video telephony and bi-directional broadcasting, were rate video streams over general Internet connections, expected to become widespread. special networks for video delivery have been constructed. The basic technology in DAVIC was MPEG-2 over ➂ Internet broadcasting ATM, which focuses on delivery quality and therefore In step ➁ above, the carriers and ISPs equipped with entails extremely high network and delivery system CDN have limited services, and it is difficult for general costs. As a result, these standards were not suitable for content holders to supply content delivery services by content delivery services to ordinary consumers. The themselves. main reason for this problem was that CATV was the It is envisaged that, in the future, many content only high-speed access network available at the time – holders will become able to provide video delivery ADSL was still at the development stage – which meant services easily, either through speed and bandwidth that there was no solid foundation from which services improvements in core networks and relay networks, or could expand. by using a network provider offering CDN. 6 OKI Technical Review October 2002/Issue 192 Vol.69 No.4 Special issue on Multimedia Messaging ● The architecture of a CDN network involves a trade Video delivery services : the current off between network cost and service cost/storage cost, and CDN design is liable to change in the future as situation and prevailing trends technology develops (Fig. 1). Many ISPs already support streaming services, and streams of several tens of Kbps to 200 – 300 Kbps are commonplace. Fig. 2 shows some examples of streaming services provided by different carriers and ISPs. In this way, a large number of carriers or ISPs, as well Internet as general contents holder, can provide streaming services, but few are yet able to do this successfully on a commercial scale. The reasons for this include the problems involved in achieving the high quality levels IX CDN architecture required for subscription services using conventional bandwidths of several 10s of Kbps to several 100s of iDC Kbps, as well as the fact that broadband networks do ISP ISP ISP not yet reach enough people to allow consumer- orientated services to be set up. Another factor is the poor offer of really attractive services or contents. In the past, the practical implementation of content Relay network delivery has faced the following problems. ➀ Incomplete broadband network infrastructure ➁ Delivery costs ➂ GC GC GC Content supply With respect to problem ➀, ADSL networks are currently expanding at a dramatic rate, and are expected to have reached 5 to 6 million subscribers by the end of 2002. Broadband Together with the increasing spread of FTTH, we can access network soon expect to reach the critical volume required for commercial implementation of these services on broadband networks, and content delivery, video telephony and other broadband services of this kind are set grow spectacularly. Delivery costs comprise both the cost of delivery Fig. 1 Content delivery network architecture systems and network costs, but Japan already has the cheapest access network costs of any country. Further cost savings will be made by the Content Content Content delivery Portal Relay network/ Access Device transition from ATM to IP networks User holder aggregator provider operator CDN operator circuit operator manufacturer for core and relay nets, as well as the NTT-C development of high-speed network NTT NTT ADSL East/West technology, such as WDM. The cost ISPs NTT FTTH PCs of delivery systems, on the other Film hand, has already been reduced to company CDN ADSL Distributor provider operator levels where it no longer poses a Broad- casting problem in practical terms. This has station Energy company Energy company ISPs FTTH S been achieved by reducing storage Toresola Newspaper costs, which account for a large part publisher NCC type ISPs NCC type FTTH Broad STB band of system expenditure, as well as Users developing cheaper, higher- Publishing B-BAT house CATV type CDN CATV ISPs providers operators performance computer systems. As for content supply, issues of All DoCoMo/KDDI/ copyright protection and right of J-Phone DoCoMo/KDDI/J-Phone CONTENT portrait used to be major stumbling HOLDERS Content Independent Game blocks, but the spread of content delivery NW devices operator Mansion protection technology based on hotel, etc. (SONY PS2) improved access control techniques, such as digital watermarking technology, encryption, etc., as well as the raised expectations of the Fig. 2 Video content delivery services OKI Technical Review 7 October 2002/Issue 192 Vol.69 No.4 content delivery market as broadband access networks continue to grow, mean that the obstacles to content Increasing Bandwidth supply are being chipped away. Most recently, legal frameworks aimed at the Broadband ISDN 64Kbps ADSL 1.5Mbps ADSL 8Mbps convergence of communications and Access (Effective bandwidth : FTTH 100Mbps CATV ª 3Mbps. max.) broadcasting are allowing the NW establishment of broadcasting services Internet Streaming High-quality streaming Residential VOD Services Free of charge VOD, broadcast services Internet broadcasting via IP networks, and the supply of delivery services broadcast content, an area that is likely to grow from here on. The following future trends can be WMT, Real MPEG-4 ASP MPEG-2 Video High-efficiency image encoding anticipated. • Quality saturation at 700 K – 1 Mbps • Difficult to deliver over Format • Difficult to establish MPEG-4 achieves pictures 8 Mbps ADSL links ➀ High picture quality pay-per-view services equivalent to 4-6 Mbps in MPEG-2, Subscription services are difficult to at a rate of 1.5 Mbps implement at the same quality as Merits • Delivery costs reduced to 1/3 – 1/4 conventional streaming services, and it • Paid delivery services possible, is important that consumer-orientated here and now services are achieved which match television image quality. At present, image encoding technology is being Fig. 3 Delivery using MPEG-4 ASP over ADSL developed which permits higher image quality, such as MPEG-4 ASP (Advanced Simple Profile), H.264, or Microsoft WMT service, the effective bandwidth in current 8 Mbps