Designing QoE experiments to evaluate peer-to-peer streaming applications

Abstract

Quality of Experience (QoE) refers to subjective criteria for evaluating multimedia content. Methods have been devised to study the design of Voice over IP systems and video codecs. In recent years, due to more abundant network bandwidth, it has become quite popular to watch video streamed over the Internet, whether by clientserver method or through a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In this paper, we describe our experience in conducting QoE studies of P2P streaming using a chunk-level model. Instead of considering fine-grained network service impairments such as bit errors, packet losses or delays, we focus on chunk level delays. We carry out some preliminary QoE experiments on low-bit rate, low-frame rate and low-resolution video (3L-video) sequences. We apply the chunk-level model to help improve the design of the P2P streaming algorithms, and the design of video players that playback network streamed video.