Abstract. The increase in high-bandwidth connections and high-speed computers has spurred the growth of streaming media across the Internet. While there have been a number of studies measuring the performance of traditional Internet traffic, there have not been sufficient empirical measurements of video performance especially for commercial videos across the Internet. The lack of empirical work that measures streaming video traffic may arise from the lack of effective video performance measurement tools. In this paper, we present RealTracer, a set of tools for measuring the performance of RealNetworks Video. RealTracer includes RealTracker, a customized video player that plays RealNetworks Video from pre-selected playlist and records user-centric video performance information. RealTracer also includes RealData, a data analysis tool that helps manage, parse and analyze data captured by RealTracker. We describe the software architecture and usage of RealTracker and the usage of RealData, both publicly available for download. To illustrate the use of RealTracer, we present some results from a study that used RealTracker to measure RealVideo performance across the Internet. Using RealData, that study made several contributions to better understanding the performance of streaming video on the Internet. Typical RealVideos have high quality, achieving an average frame rate of 10 frames per second and very smooth playout, but very few videos achieve full-motion frame rates. Overall video performance is most influenced by the bandwidth of the end-user connection to the Internet, but high-bandwidth Internet connections are pushing the video performance bottleneck closer to the server.
Wang et al. REF collected streaming data with RealTracer, a tool collection that measures the performance of RealNetworks Video.
RealTracer—Tools for Measuring the Performance of RealVideo on the Internet
Multimedia Tools and Applications
Multimedia Tools and Applications
Computer Science