Quality of Experience Models for Multimedia Streaming

Understanding how quality is perceived by viewers of multimedia streaming services is essential for efficient management of those services. Quality of Experience (QoE) is a subjective metric that quantifies the perceived quality, which is crucial in the process of optimizing tradeoff between quality and resources. However, accurate estimation of QoE often entails cumbersome studies that are long and expensive to execute. In this regard, the authors present a QoE estimation methodology for developing Machine Learning prediction models based on initial restricted-size subjective tests. Experimental results on subjective data from streaming multimedia tests show that the Machine Learning models outperform other statistical methods achieving accuracy greater than 90%. These models are suitable for real-time use due to their small computational complexity. Even though they have high accuracy, these models are static and cannot adapt to environmental change. To maintain the accuracy of the prediction models, the authors have adopted Online Learning techniques that update the models on data from subjective viewer feedback. This method provides accurate and adaptive QoE prediction models that are an indispensible component of a QoE-aware management service.