Scalable and Resilient 360-degree-Video Adaptive Streaming over HTTP/2 against Sudden Network Drops

<p>Realistic Virtual Reality is supported by 360° video, which provides viewers with an immersive watching experience. However, 360° video is bulky in size, while the transmission system has limited ability to provide bandwidth. As such, intelligent adaptive delivery solutions play a crucial role in enabling users to stream high-quality 360° video. In this research, we propose a novel approach for 360-degree video streaming over HTTP/2 that can provide consumers with a good watching experience (QoE) even in varying network circumstances and head-eye movements over time. The proposed method deploys the so-called BBAG algorithm (Buffer and Bandwidth Allocation Algorithm) using Scalable Video Coding to choose appropriate tile layers to resolve the trade-off between network and user adaptivity. With the support of HTTP/2's stream termination capability, the delivery of late tile layers is terminated to handle abrupt interruptions. BBAG is proven to improve QoE from 3.56% to 93.71% and the average viewport bitrate from 1.78% to 80.49% compared to state-of-the-art methods.</p>