This letter proposes a new mechanism that supports adaptive sending control using Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for IPTV service over heterogeneous networks. The proposed mechanism is implemented on a mobile IPTV device and its performance is verified for providing seamless television watching in heterogeneous networks, even when in motion.

This letter proposes a new mechanism for network configuration on a mobile device that provides Point of Attachment (PoA) specific information using IEEE 802.21 and DHCP before moving to a new PoA. This allows the mobile device to prepare for intelligent handover decision either stateless address configuration or stateful address configuration when entering an IPv6 network. It allows the mobile device to reduce time delay for IP address configuration in the new PoA. Implementation and evaluation results show that the proposed mechanism can be an acceptable network configuration mechanism for providing seamless television watching in IPv6 mobile networks, even when in motion.

This paper presents a method of measuring the traffic of IP multicast streaming, such as IPTV, by using IPFIX and PSAMP. The IP multicast streaming service has recently become one of the popular network services, but no IP multicast operation method has been established yet. In particular, traffic measurement of IP multicast streaming encounters two challenges: as monitoring a multicast path tree and QoS measurement. There is no method to monitor them continuously in large-scale networks. Hence, we explore measurement structure suitable for large-scale networks, and then using IPFIX and PSAMP, we propose an efficient a network-level quality measurement method for IPTV and a method to extract multicast path tree data. In addition, we demonstrate the feasibility of the measurement method by evaluating a prototype system.

Service providers should monitor the quality of experience of a communication service in real time to confirm its status. To do this, we previously proposed a packet-layer model that can be used for monitoring the average video quality of typical Internet protocol television content using parameters derived from transmitted packet headers. However, it is difficult to monitor the video quality per user using the average video quality because video quality depends on the video content. To accurately monitor the video quality per user, a model that can be used for estimating the video quality per video content rather than the average video quality should be developed. Therefore, to take into account the impact of video content on video quality, we propose a model that calculates the difference in video quality between the video quality of the estimation-target video and the average video quality estimated using a packet-layer model. We first conducted extensive subjective quality assessments for different codecs and video sequences. We then model their characteristics based on parameters related to compression and packet loss. Finally, we verify the performance of the proposed model by applying it to unknown data sets different from the training data sets used for developing the model.

This letter proposes a new fast network configuration scheme that realizes an IP interface that allows users to view Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) in IPv6 networks more quickly than is possible with the current configuration procedure. The new scheme, a hybrid combination of IPv6, address information, and non-IP information, especially the Domain Name Service, is newly designed based on a technical analysis. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme is acceptable for real-time television watching in IPv6 networks, even when in motion.

We propose a scheduling method called SCQ (Smoothly Changing Queue) which can control service rate by bulk size of video streaming services such as IPTV and VoD. Since SCQ allows queue length to change smoothly, video streaming services can be stably provided with low jitter. Queueing analysis results show that SCQ can more stably deliver video streaming with low jitter and loss than existing AQMs or queue length-based rate control methods.

In recent years, the usage of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) has been increased. The reason is a technological convergence of broadcasting and telecommunication delivering interactive applications and multimedia content through high speed Internet connections. The main critical point of IPTV security requirements is subscriber authentication. That is, IPTV service should have the capability to identify the subscribers to prohibit illegal access. Currently, IPTV service does not provide a sound authentication mechanism to verify the identity of its wireless users (or devices). This paper focuses on a lightweight authentication and key establishment protocol based on the use of hash functions. The proposed approach provides effective authentication for a mobile user with a RFID tag whose authentication information is communicated back and forth with the IPTV authentication server via IPTV set-top box (STB). That is, the proposed protocol generates user's authentication information that is a bundle of two public keys derived from hashing user's private keys and RFID tag's session identifier, and adds 1 bit to this bundled information for subscriber's information confidentiality before passing it to the authentication server.

In this letter, we propose distorted scenes enhancement algorithm in order to provide end user perceptual QoE-guaranteed IPTV service. The block edge detection with weight factor and partition-based local color values method can be applied for the degraded video frames which are affected by network transmission errors such as out of order, jitter, and packet loss to improve QoE efficiently. Based on the result of quality metric after using the distorted scenes enhancement algorithm, the distorted scenes have been restored better than others.

We propose a parametric packet-layer model for monitoring audio quality in multimedia streaming services such as Internet protocol television (IPTV). This model estimates audio quality of experience (QoE) on the basis of quality degradation due to coding and packet loss of an audio sequence. The input parameters of this model are audio bit rate, sampling rate, frame length, packet-loss frequency, and average burst length. Audio bit rate, packet-loss frequency, and average burst length are calculated from header information in received IP packets. For sampling rate, frame length, and audio codec type, the values or the names used in monitored services are input into this model directly. We performed a subjective listening test to examine the relationships between these input parameters and perceived audio quality. The codec used in this test was the Advanced Audio Codec-Low Complexity (AAC-LC), which is one of the international standards for audio coding. On the basis of the test results, we developed an audio quality evaluation model. The verification results indicate that audio quality estimated by the proposed model has a high correlation with perceived audio quality.

In this paper, we discuss QoE (Quality of Experience) requirements for MVV (Multi-View Video) and audio transmission over IP networks and study the effect of the playout buffering time, contents and viewpoint change interfaces on the QoE and user's behavior. Unlike previous works, which mainly discuss MVV transmission from aspects of video codecs, we study MVV and audio transmission under various IP traffic and delay conditions by experiment. We compare two schemes: a scheme that the user watches from a single viewpoint and the one that he/she can choose one viewpoint from many ones. As a result, we show that the users prefer the scheme where they can choose one viewpoint from many ones. We have found that when using proper buffering time, the users feel faster viewpoint changes; it improves their satisfaction compared to that when they watch on a single viewpoint. We have also noticed that the user pays more attention to the degradation of the video when watching on a single viewpoint. We have observed that the users tend to change the viewpoint more frequently in light traffic and low delay.

We propose a new Internet group management protocol (IGMP) which can be used in passive optical network (PON) especially for IPTV services which dramatically reduces the channel change response time caused by traditional IGMP. In this paper, the newly proposed IGMP is introduced in detail and performance analysis is also included. Simulation results demonstrated the performance of the newly proposed IGMP, whereby, viewers can watch the shared IPTV channels without the channel change response time when channel request reaches a threshold.

The security level of an internet protocol television (IPTV) digital right management (DRM) system ultimately relies on protection of secret keys. Well known devices for the key protection include smartcards and battery backup SRAMs (BB-SRAMs); however, these devices could be vulnerable to various physical attacks. In this paper, we propose a secure and cost-effective design of a cryptographic system on chip (SoC) that integrates the BB-SRAM with a cell-based design technique. The proposed SoC provides robust safeguard against the physical attacks, and satisfies high-speed and low-price requirements of IPTV set-top boxes. Our implementation results show that the maximum encryption rate of the SoC is 633 Mb/s. In order to verify the data retention capabilities, we made a prototype chip using 0.18 µm standard cell technology. The experimental results show that the integrated BB-SRAM can reliably retain data with a 1.4 µA leakage current.

Developing a non-intrusive packet-layer model is required to passively monitor the quality of experience (QoE) during service. We propose a packet-layer model that can be used to estimate the video quality of IPTV using quality parameters derived from transmitted packet headers. The computational load of the model is lighter than that of the model that takes video signals and/or video-related bitstream information such as motion vectors as input. This model is applicable even if the transmitted bitstream information is encrypted because it uses transmitted packet headers rather than bitstream information. For developing the model, we conducted three extensive subjective quality assessments for different encoders and decoders (codecs), and video content. Then, we modeled the subjective video quality assessment characteristics based on objective features affected by coding and packet loss. Finally, we verified the model's validity by applying our model to unknown data sets different from training data sets used above.

We propose an IP broadcasting system architecture using passive optical networks (PON) utilizing the optical broadcast links of a PON with a downstream bandwidth allocation algorithm to provide a multi-channel IP broadcasting service to home subscribers on single broadband IP network infrastructures. We introduce the design and adaptation of the optical broadcast links to effectively broadcast video contents to home subscribers. We present a performance analysis that includes the downstream bandwidth utilization efficiency of the broadcast link and the bandwidth control of the IP broadcasting and Internet data. Our analysis and simulation results show that the proposed system can provide 100 HDTV channels to every user over fiber lines. We also propose an IPTV channel selection mechanism in an ONT by selecting a broadcast stream. We developed and evaluated a prototype that can achieve a 15-msec IPTV channel selection speed.