INTRODUCTION

Research says that in a few years video content could make up most of the internet
traffic, Video not accessible, Low Quality of Experience, Fragmentation, and
Expensive. A major reason is, nowadays every business platform has its manifest
format, content formats, and streaming protocols. The usage of Mobile Internet is
exclusively expanding, and video traffic is also growing exponentially. Challenges to
be accepted are,
• The Mobile users need to experience a high-quality video experience.
• The Network operators are in demand to offer quality experience affordably.

A solution for preventing these problems is providing interoperability between

various servers and devices. Achieving this interoperability will serve as an
instrumental for the growth of the market, because a common ecosystem of content
and services will be able to provide a set of devices like TVs, PCs, laptops, set-top
boxes, mobiles phones and tablets. Thus, the era of MPEG-Dynamic Adaptive
Streaming (DASH) was launched as a solution.
WHAT IS DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP)
DASH is stated as not a system or a protocol or a presentation or a codec or
interactivity or a client specification. It is stated as an enabler, and hence in-built
provides formats enabling efficiency and provides high-quality delivery of streaming
services over the Internet. DASH is considered as one component for end-to-end
service. where the System definition is managed by the other organizations like Fora,
SDOs, etc.).
Design of DASH:
– Possibility to Reuse of existing technologies (containers, codecs, DRM, etc.)
– Enabling deployment on top of HTTP-CDNs (Web Infrastructures, caching)
– Enabling very high user-experience (low start-up, no rebuffering, trick modes)
– Enabling selection based on network and device capability, user preferences
– Enabling seamless switching, live and DVD-kind of experiences
– Transfers intelligence from network to the client, enabling client diversity
– Enables deployment elasticity (e. g., live, on-demand, time-shift viewing) and
delivers modest interoperability points (profiles)
WHAT IS MPEG-DASH?
Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) is also called MPEG DASH. The
analysing through various sources found that just like Apple’s HLS Solution, MPEG-
DASH is the adaptive bit-rate HTTP-based streaming solution. It enables high-
quality media content over the internet delivered from the convectional HTTP web
servers by applying the technique of adaptive bitrate streaming. Breaking the content
into a sequence of segments results in the working of the MPEG-DASH, which are
served over the HTTP. Those broken segments contain a short interval of playback
time of content that is potentially many hours in duration. For example, such as
movies, live broadcasts, etc. Unlike HDS or Smooth Streaming, DASH is a code-
agonistic, leading the usage of content encoded with any format like H.264, VPG,
and so on.
MPEG-DASH technology was developed from MPEG technology. The work of
MPEG-DASH was started in 2010, and it was drafted by DIS (Draft International
Standard) in January 2011 and launched as IS (International standard) in November
2011. Finally, it was published in April 2012 and recently revised in 2019 as MPEG-
DASH ISO/IEC 23009-1:2019. Some of the technologies like Adobe Systems HTTP
Dynamic Streaming, Apple Inc. HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and Microsoft Smooth
Streaming are related to DASH technology. It is based on Adaptive HTTP streaming
(AHS) and HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS). It has features of major streaming and
media companies like Google, Microsoft, Ericsson, Adobe, etc. DASH also creates
guidelines according to its purposes for different use cases in practice. And, it is also
integrated with other standards and supported in other versions of various devices.
MPEG-DASH Capabilities:
 Enabling live, on-demand, and time-shift services.
 Allows independence of request sizes and segment sizes
 Following are the segment formats:
o ISO base media formats – ISO BMFF or MPEG-2 TS
o ISO BMFF - It is a File Format (extensions)
o MPEG-2 TS – It is a Transport Stream (extensions)
 Follows some Guidelines for integrating any other format
 MPEG DASH is a Codec independent
 Server/client component synchronization (e.g., separate, and multiplexed AV) is
Supported.
 Enables targeted ad insertion and content descriptors for protection,
accessibility, rating, etc.
 Purposely defines quality metrics.
MPEG-DASH uses MPD (Media Presentation Descriptor) and Index Information
as metadata for accessing the DASH Access Client. The MPD is the description of
accessible segments and corresponding timing.

WORKING OF MPEG-DASH:
MPEG-DASH works on the technique of Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
Adaptive Streaming Concept:
 AST- Adaptive Streaming technologies enable an Optimal streaming video
watching experience for a diverse range of devices over a broad set of connection
speeds.
 AST shares the creation of numerous files from the same source file to
distribute to audiences inspecting on dissimilar powered devices via different
connection speeds
 The files distribution adaptively changes the stream that is delivered to adapt to
changes in effective throughput and available CPU cycles on playback stations
 A transparent operation is provided to the user allowing the viewer to click on
one button and all streams switch/adapt are sensed behind the scenes.

TYPES OF APPROACHES IN ADAPTIVE STREAMING TECHNOLOGIES:

Approach 1 for Adaptive Streaming:
Initially, the high important video information is sent by the Server (e.g., Iframes).
On sending the high-importance video information, the lower-priority video
information follows (e.g., P and B frames) only if bandwidth and time allow.
Approach 2 for Adaptive Streaming:
Only the high-quality part of the frame is sent by the server progressively. The
remaining frame details are sent only if the bandwidth and time are permitted.
Approach 3 for Adaptive Streaming:
The server video is encoded in multiple bitrates and depending on the device, the
bandwidth is adjusted according to the rate of other approaches that exist.
Let us consider a Real-time example:
Users/consumers desire to watch the online video anywhere, anytime on any device.
Also, they need videos to be streamed without interruption in the highest resolution
possible. While streaming videos at the highest resolution, videos look great but
when bandwidth conditions are worsened, for example, network changes from wi-fi
to 3G, the demands of high-resolution video overload a viewer’s connection. To
address or solve this problem, content delivery networks (CDNs) and video providers
are turning to Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Streaming.

Adaptive Bitrate Streaming:

Adaptive Bitrate Streaming is used to detect a user's available bandwidth in real-time
and fine-tunes the video stream accordingly to deliver the best possible picture
quality. A dynamic change happens on the bandwidth to higher and lower levels
based on the availability of the resources. Though the concept is generally the same
for every resource, there are several different flavors of Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
technology. Adobe uses the technique of HTTP Dynamic Streaming; Microsoft takes
up the technique of Smooth Streaming and Apple goes with the process of HTTP
Live Streaming.

ADOBE - HTTP DYNAMIC STREAMING:

• Robust, scalable delivery

• Support for standard HTTP caching systems
• Unparalleled reach
• Open-source file specifications
• Adaptive bitrate
• Support for standard HTTP caching systems
• Live or on-demand streaming support
• Multiple video codecs

MICROSOFT – SMOOTH STREAMING:

 Smooth streaming permits the consumers to get minimal buffering and fast
start-up time, fulfilling the consumers’ requirements by adapting the video
stream quality in present, depending on the consumer's varying bandwidth and
CPU settings.
 The adaptive streaming of content is made possible, allowing on-the-fly
compensation for changes during playback by the application of a Multi-bitrate
Smooth Streaming.
APPLE – HTTP LIVE STREAMING:

 HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology from Apple, sends live and on‐
demand audio and video to iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and PC.
 HLS permits deployment of content using ordinary web servers and content
delivery networks using the same network source.
 With the available speed of wired and wireless connections, the playback of
video is optimized. Videos are designed for reliability and vigorously adapt to
network conditions as per the speed of data.

WORKING OF ABR:

 Working of ABR needs first, a video is encoded at different bitrates to

accommodate varying bandwidth connections. Every bitrate version is divided into
small fragments, characteristically 2 to 10 seconds.
 The video player pulls the fragments from different encodings and inserts them
into the stream as bandwidth dictates.
 The result of this process is faster video start times and a continuous,
uninterrupted video experience, which results in happier viewers and content
providers. Thus, it also fallouts in a major measurement challenge.
 A few years ago, a long movie is measured and played using a single file. But
with ABR, a movie can be measured in aggregate over a large viewing audience
that requires analysing tens of thousands of separate files.

Now, consider the sheer volume of ABR files coursing over a network with 150
channels. The number of fragment files over this network is equal to the tens of
millions for a single bitrate. Further, add several more bitrates into the existing
equation and now the number of Adaptive Bitrates Streaming files would
progressively increase into the hundreds of millions. Hence, this level of
fragmentation turns over the measurement data into a lot of unusable noise.
Finally, WHY MPEG-DASH IS NEEDED?

In recent days, due to emerging of new technologies and growing competencies,

industries are moving quickly to provide solutions based on MPEG-DASH. In
addition to this, it also includes some open-source implementations. It’s firmly
believed that in the upcoming years, it will be a crucial time for the industries to
include content, providing service and platform, software vendors, CDN providers,
and device manufacturers to join hands with this standard and actively cope up in
building an interoperable ecosystem for multimedia streaming over the Internet.
Below are the top-most characteristics of MPEG DASH:
• Provides sufficient flexibility
• Rich and simple at the same time
• Easy to understand more detailed market needs
• Profiles are created by considering the user requirements
• Integration of MPEG-DASH collaborates with system creators
• Usage of HTTP web server infrastructure delivers all essential contents overall
World Wide Web content
• Supports both un-chunked and chunked
• Supports both separate and combined AV
• Index format is obscure for effectual byte range process
• For w/common encryption ISO base media file format is applied
• Usage of the stream and track annotations currently includes the best candidate for
an open standard for adaptive streaming