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Green Video Streaming: Intelligent Climate-Friendly Video Delivery System

Project Code:CFVDS

Project Description:

Global internet traffic has exceeded 100 billion GB, with video content representing more than 80% of the total internet traffic in 2021. In 2019, Digital technologies represented close to 4% of worldwide carbon emissions and this share is expected to increase to 8% by 2025. In 2021, the Film and TV industry emitted an average of 5.7 tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) per hour of TV programming. Internet data traffic accounts for over 50% of the overall global impact of digital technology.

As video content becomes readily accessible at any time, facilitated by high-speed internet (e.g., 5G), this trend is anticipated to consistently rise in the coming years. Each step in the video delivery chain, including video capturing, encoding, transmission, decoding, and display, requires a substantial amount of electricity. The examination of energy efficiency in video streaming is crucial for the development of sustainable video technologies. Maintaining an optimal Quality of Experience (QoE) necessitates significant energy consumption, attributed to factors such as high traffic volume, efficient and rapid video encoding, optimal video encoding parameters (including codec, frame rate, and resolution), and diverse screen display technologies. There is a necessity to explore approaches that enable greener video encoding, transmission, and decoding processes while maintaining optimal Quality of Experience (QoE).

Video service providers such as BBC, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube employ adaptive video streaming to give the audiences of internet-streamed programmes an enhanced user experience. The adaptive streaming selects the highest feasible video quality based on the network conditions. However, selecting the highest available video quality leads to high energy consumption during video transcoding, transmission, and rendering. From a video coding perspective, getting a high video quality after compression potentially requires extensive computational power, as encoders/decoders strive to explore various prediction possibilities based on the previously coded frames. For decades, the video codec community has been trying to balance the trade-off between video quality and encoding/decoding complexity. The complexity and energy requirements of the encoder pose limitations for battery-operated devices. Conserving battery power may lead to a decline in user Quality of Experience (QoE) due to reduced frame rates or limited conversation time. Similarly, opting for lower video resolutions can reduce energy consumption across the video delivery chain, but at the expense of QoE. 

The project focuses on the analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation of an energy-efficient video streaming system while maintaining an acceptable Quality of Experience (QoE). Achieving these objectives entail reducing energy consumption by employing optimizations across various stages of the video delivery chain. The carbon footprint mitigation in video streaming systems presents challenges and opportunities across three main components: (1) Servers, (2) Networks, (3) User-end devices. Within this footprint, end-user devices account for the majority (54%) of the emission, followed by networks and servers [4]. The contributions of the this project are as follows: (1) Investigation of the trade-off between energy efficiency and user experience for video transcoding, transmission, end-user devices and end-user environment, (2) Design and implement an energy-aware transcoding system aiming at high encoding efficiency and low energy consumption, (3) Design and implement an energy-aware adaptive bitrate streaming by employing a perceived quality metric such as VMAF (Video Multi-method Assessment Fusion), and energy consumption measurements. 

Anticipated Findings and Contribution to Knowledge:  

By the year 2025, it is projected that digital technologies will account for approximately 8% of all Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG). In 2021, at COP26, twelve of the UK's largest broadcasters and streaming platforms, including the BBC, ITV, Sky, and Channel 4, committed to The Climate Content Pledge. It has become essential to foster the development of sustainable video technologies. This project’s key aim is focused on the design, development, evaluation, and discussion of an energy-aware video delivery system without sacrificing end-user’s QoE. The project will provide valuable insights that promote the adoption of sustainable usage patterns, ultimately reducing the overall energy consumption of video streaming.

To achieve the key aim, the project encompasses the following objectives: 

  • Measurement and analysis of the energy consumption and carbon saving for transcoding video tasks on video delivery, video transmission, and playback on end-user viewing devices.
  • Based on the collected data, develop an energy-aware transcoding system that meets the real-time delivery requirements for video processing tasks (including encoding and transmission) while ensuring a high quality of experience (QoE) 
  • Analyse user engagement, QoE, and its relation to energy consumption 
  • Based on the analysis, design and implement an energy-aware adaptive video streaming delivery system that optimizes energy consumption without compromising the Quality of Service (QoS) and user's Quality of Experience (QoE) 

Person Specification: 

  • A Bachelor’s Hons degree (at class 2.1 or above, or international equivalent) and Master’s degree in a relevant subject (Media Technology, Electrical Engineering, Computer science). 
  • Ideal candidate will have experience or a strong interest in programming. 
  • Practical experience in research or industry will be considered an advantage. Previous experience publishing papers is desirable. 

Contact (and Director of Studies for this project): Dr Waqas Rahman, Waqas.Rahman@mail.bcu.ac.uk

How to Apply

To apply, please complete the project proposal form, ensuring that you quote the project reference, and then complete the online application where you will be required to upload your proposal in place of a personal statement as a PDF document.

You will also be required to upload two references, at least one being an academic reference, and your qualification/s of entry (Bachelor/Masters certificate/s and transcript/s).