Mobile TV services through IP Datacast over DVB-H: Dependability of the quality of experience on the IP-based distribution network quality of service

The Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H) is an international standard which offers broadcast data services to mobile handheld devices. Its main enhancements to conventional Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial (DVB-T) systems include the addition of time-slicing and an extra stage of error correction, referred to as Multi-Protocol Encapsulation-Forward Error Correction (MPE-FEC) at the link layer. The essential components required to deploy an IP-based mobile TV service on top of DVB-H are described by the DVB standard for IP DataCast specifications (DVB-IPDC). Since mobile TV services mostly consist of real-time video data, very stringent demands in terms of quality of service (QoS) are imposed to the broadcast operator's primary distribution network. In this article, the impact of packet loss, introduced in a IP-based distribution network, on the quality of experience (QoE), the video quality as perceived by the end user, is characterised. In recent work, a first analysis of the impact of random packet loss was reported upon. This paper describes a more profound analysis of both random and burst packet loss by taking into account several objective video quality metrics. It is shown that, although MPE-FEC is introduced for better reception between antenna and receiver, its use has a major impact on the effects of packet loss in the distribution network. The use of error-correction techniques in the distribution network only has a beneficial impact on the QoE when lower MPE-FEC code rates are used. Moreover, the impact of action scenes or scene switches on the perceived video quality is also characterised in detail. Based on the experimental results, an analytical model is presented which allows to predict the QoE detoriation as a function of the burst loss probability in the distribution network.