A quality metric for use with frame-rate based bandwidth adaptation algorithms

Despite the growth in network capacity of wireless in home networks, these networks often have insufficient capacity to support multiple simultaneous Audio/Video streams. Unpredictable behavior of these networks results in a drop of video quality for the end-user. A method for reducing the claim of an individual AN stream on the network capacity is controlled frame dropping. However, controlled frame dropping will only be accepted if its effect on the quality that end-users experience is minimized. In this paper, we define an objective quality metric for frame dropping methods, to determine when frame dropping is not effective any more. The quality metric, a fraction between 0 and 1, is related to the characteristics of frame dropping. A quality level below 0.9 indicates that a detectable amount of frames has been dropped. A quality level above 0.98 indicates that no significant frame drops occurred recently. The metric is validated with simulations.