The Challenges of Adaptive Streaming

BBC - Research and Development: The Challenges of Adaptive Streaming: "Adaptive streaming works by encoding the same media file at a number of different bit-rates, which produces multiple ‘representations’ of the content, each at different qualities. As the quality of the internet connection varies, the streaming client can switch between the different representations to provide a smooth viewing experience. When the connection is good, a high bit-rate representation will be requested, resulting in a good quality picture. If the connection worsens, the client will request a lower bit-rate, resulting in a slight decrease in picture quality but a better overall experience since it avoids freezing and rebuffering.
The BBC is already using adaptive streaming (e.g. for Wimbledon and the Olympics), however there is still work to be done to understand how the technology can be optimised for different network environments e.g. characteristics of residential broadband networks, and looking into how we can produce and test different algorithms that decide which representation to request based on the network environment."
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