QoE Performance of Adaptive Video Streaming in
Information Centric Networks
Koki Goto, Yusaku Hayamizu
Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology,
Kansai University Sophia University
Osaka 564–8680 Japan Tokyo 102–0081 Japan
Email: {k067669, k911112}@kansai-u.ac.jp Email: bandai@sophia.ac.jp
Abstract—In Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) utilized in MPEG-
DASH (MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP), there
have been proposed three representative algorithms, rate-based,
buffer-based and hybrid-based ones. In the information centric
networks, which have been widely studied as a network architec-
ture for efficient content distribution including video streaming,
routers are generally equipped with cache storage. When some
segments of a required content is occasionally downloaded from
cache storage in a router, content download from a router
might be faster than segment retrieval from the original content
server. This inaccurate throughput estimation might lead to
inappropriate bitrate selection of ABR algorithm running on the
user’s application and significant degradation of QoE (Quality
of Experience) performance. In this paper, from the viewpoint
of QoE, we evaluate the influence of in-network caches on three
types of ABR algorithm in video streaming.
Index Terms—Information-Centric Networking, In-Network
Cache, Streaming, Quality of Experience
I. I NTRODUCTION
MPEG-DASH (MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over
HTTP) [1] is widely used as adaptive streaming to select
appropriate bitrate that matches network bandwidth. ABR
(Adaptive Bit Rate) algorithms used in MPEG-DASH are
classified into three types [2]: rate-based (RBA) [3] where
download throughput of each segment is used for bandwidth
estimation, buffer-based (BBA) [4] where playout buffer level
of a client is used for bitrate selection, and hybrid-based
(AdapTech) [5] where both download throughput and playout
buffer level are utilized.
ICN (Information-Centric Networking) [6] has been widely
studied for efficient content distribution including video
streaming. In ICN, routers are equipped with cache storage and
can provide cached video contents instead of original servers.
A user can quickly download video contents from the routers.
However, it is difficult for the user to accurately estimate
available network bandwidth because the users cannot specify
whether a downloaded segment is obtained from a content
server or an intermediate router. Rate-based and hybrid-based
algorithms which utilize download throughput for bandwidth
estimation may have negative effects for bitrate selection.
In this paper, we evaluate three representative algorithms in
MPEG-DASH with occasional cache hit in in-network cache
over ICN from the viewpoint of QoE, which is a general user-
perceived metric of video streaming.
II. Q O E: Q UALITY OF E XPERIENCE
QoE is one of the most important metrics that represent
streaming quality perceived by users. In video streaming,
users prefer to watch high-quality(resolution) videos, thus the
Masaki Bandai Miki Yamamoto
Faculty of Engineering Science,
Kansai University
Osaka 564–8680 Japan
Email: yama-m@kansai-u.ac.jp
higher average bitrate of downloaded segments brings the
better QoE. However, it is desirable that quality change of
consecutive segments is low. In terms of delay, startup delay,
i.e. waiting time from clicking(selecting) time of a video
content to starting time of playback, should be shorter as much
as possible, and rebuffering due to buffer exhaustion should
not occur. In order to take these streaming quality aspects into
account, we use the following equation defined in [7] as our
evaluation metric.

K 
K−1 
K
QoE = q(Rk ) − λ |q(Rk+1 ) − q(Rk )| − μ bk − μs D, (1)
k=1 k=1 k=1
where one video content is divided into K segments. Rk
denotes bitrate of segment k, and q(Rk ) is utility function
when a user watches a segment whose bitrate is Rk . The first
term represents the total bitrate downloaded by a user. The
second term represents the sum of quality change between
consecutive segments. The third term shows the sum of
rebuffering time bk . The forth term D is startup delay. λ, μ
and μs are weighting factors.
In classical MPEG-DASH over IP, QoE depends only on
bandwidth variation of a bottleneck link from a user to the
original server. In ICN, however, a cache hit at an intermediate
router may affect throughput estimation of the user. If the
cache hit occurs at the user’s side, i.e. request found the
cached segment before it passes through the bottleneck link,
throughput significantly increases. In this case, the user selects
a higher bitrate than the actual bandwidth with throughput-
oriented approaches, i.e. rate-based and hybrid-based algo-
rithms. When required bitrate is higher than the available
bandwidth, segment download time increases and rebuffering
which leads to QoE degradation may occur.
III. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
To evaluate performance impact of in-network cache, we
conduct evaluation of three representative ABR algorithms
from the QoE viewpoint. We modified ndnSIM2.1 for the
evaluation. Figure 1 shows evaluation model, and Table I
shows parameters for each ABR algorithm. In order to observe
influences of segment cache hit, segments are randomly cached
on Router1 before the bottleneck link. Duration of the video
content is 60 [s] and each segment duration is 2 [s]. We
prepare 10 bitrates levels: R={0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.2, 2.0,
3.0, 5.0, 8.0[Mbps]}. Playout buffer capacity is 30 seconds.
In [7], q(Rk ) in Eq. 1 maps bitrate to quality perceived by
a user, and there are three user-types: QoElin , QoElog , and
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(a) QoElin (b) QoElog (c) QoEhd

Fig. 2. QoE performance for each user-type

QoEhd . The exact values of q(Rk ) are provided in Table require low-quality segments after the cache hits has high QoE
II. As shown in this table, with QoElin and QoElog , q(Rk ) performance. However, this immediate action causes drastic
gradually increases. In contract, with QoEhd , QoE increases in change of streaming quality between consecutive segments.
a stepwise manner. In other words, quality depends on whether With QoEhd , this quality change can cause significant QoE
a downloaded segment is high-quality or not. We change the reduction, thus QoE performance of RBA is lower than
number of cached segments from 0 to 30 and evaluate QoE AdapTech. AdapTech whose rate reduction is dull, i.e. de-
characteristics for cache hit. crease its bitarte just one representation, has high QoE perfor-
8VHU 5RXWHU 6HUYHU mance. AdapTech does not decrease its bitrate compared to
5RXWHU
RBA and continues to require high-quality segments. In other
0ESV 0ESV 0ESV words, AdapTech prevents unnecessary decrease of bitrate and
PV PV PV conducts moderate bitrate selection. From these results, we
show that appropriate ABR algorithm significantly depends on
Fig. 1. Evaluation model how the user perceives quality of downloaded video segments.
TABLE I We need to select appropriate ABR algorithm suitable for
PARAMETERS OF ABR ALGORITHMS streaming user’s preference in ICN.
RBA [3] β 0.67
BBA [4] (Bmin , Bm ) (10, 26) IV. C ONCLUSIONS
AdapTech [5] (θ1 , θ2 , T, δ, ζ) (7, 14, 10, 0.8, 0.8) In this paper, we evaluate QoE performance of ABR al-
TABLE II gorithms in ICN environment with in-network caches. We
PARAMETERS OF QOE showed that rebuffering is caused by cache hits in throughput-
Name q(Rk ) λ μ, μs oriented algorithms as we expected. Also, we focused on
QoElin R 1 8 how streaming users perceive quality for downloaded video
QoElog log(R/Rmin ) 1 4.3 segments and revealed that appropriate ABR algorithm for a
0.1 → 0.6, 0.2 → 0.8, 0.3 → 1, 0.5 → 1.4,
QoEhd 0.7 → 1.9, 1.2 → 3, 2.0 → 12, 3.0 → 16, 1 8
streaming user significantly depends on the user’s preference.
5.0 → 22, 8.0 → 33 In the future work, we plan to newly develop an ABR algo-
rithm which adapt to various situations and users’ preference.
In the evaluation, we confirmed that rebuffering oc-
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
curs in throughput-oriented approaches due to cache hits.
The maximum rebuffering time of RBA(rate-based) and This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant
AdapTech(hybrid-based) are 3.1 [s] and 8.5 [s], respectively. Number 17H01740.
RBA decreases its bitrate immediately after throughput mis- R EFERENCES
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